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Program Areas :: Conservation & Restoration
 FOSC Projectsclick for more info on each project
Native Plant Demonstration Garden, Dimond Park Funder: Alameda County Flood Control and Water Conservation District, Zone 12 Status: completed, but always needs weeding Contact: phone (501-FOSC) or email FOSC Description: The native plant demonstration garden, located above the tot lot in Dimond Park, is meant to promote the use of natives and native cultivars in home gardens. Species commonly available in nurseries were chosen, and the value of gardening with natives is being promoted through signs, flyers, a booklet, and the friends' events. back to top Dimond Canyon Trail Building Project Funder: Status: Contact: Description: back to top Riparian Restoration Project, Dimond Park Funder:City of Oakland / Alameda County Flood Control District, Zone 12 Status: completed, but always needs weeding! Contact: phone (501-FOSC) or email FOSC Description: After clearing the riparian zone (as well as the upslope hills where the demonstration garden was installed) of pernicious exotics such as Algerian and cape ivies and acacia, volunteers have planted locally harvested and propagated natives on 20,000 square feet along a quarter mile of Sausal Creek. Over 700 plants from 40 different species have been planted, all grown from cuttings taken in the watershed. This project focused on the area between the Dimond Park tot lot and El Centro Ave. back to top Bridgeview Erosion Control Project Funder: State of California Status: Contact: Mark Rauzon Description: Running free, Dimond Creek has cut a steep canyon over time. (When she gets to the flatlands, she enters the "retirement home" of culverts all the way to the Bay.) About 40 years ago, the City of Oakland filled the portion of the canyon we now call Bridgeview Meadow with pieces of concrete and earth. It was once a lateral valley to Sausal Creek. The big ditch became a municipal dumping ground. For many years, the valley was filled with asphalt, cement, ceramic pipes, lead wires, ancient transmissions. About 1996-97, a rivulet mysteriously surfaced in the meadow and flowed out of the willow thicket that always indicated underground water. After an especially tremendous El Niño rain storm, the bifurcated creek caused a landslide that threatened the precariously perched houses on the hill. A landlord had the creek's western flow "re-directed" so all the water flowed from the eastern branch. The creek ran amuck and created a long erosion scar. The Friends of Sausal Creek obtained a $14,000 state grant and began to repair the slide. The City helped to rechannel the rivulet and built earthen berms to direct the water into newly installed and refurbished drainage system. To repair the erosional damage, the Friends are building "fascines" by cutting shallow ditches across the face of the scar and placing willow wands taken from the thicket above. The wands are covered with earth and layers of brush are piled on top. Willow stakes are driven in to hold the fascine in place during a flood. The stakes also sprout into instant trees. The Bridgeview Meadow's slide restoration has created a willow wonderland for neo-tropical birds, and we'll see more of our feathered friends than ever before. Also in an effort to retard erosion and limit the growth of fire-prone weeds in the meadow, FOSC planted 40 redwoods in the meadow. During the March 1998 planting we discovered that around the periphery of the meadow was a buried asphalt road--so that's why we couldn't dig there! In all, 37 of the plantings survived, until the summer of 2001. But by 2002 only 7 remain alive. -Mark Rauzon back to top Montclair Golf Course Revegetation Project Funder: Status: Contact: Description: In October, 1999, the City of Oakland initiated a $500.000 project to aid the Montclair Golf Course. An unstable wet slope above the golf course was slowly melting onto the access road and parking lot. In return the golf course promised to make $1,000,000.00 in capital improvement. The project was fast-tracked with no public input. Bulldozers appeared and scraped the slope of vegetation, dug ditches, built retention walls and buried drainage pipes into the slope. A trail was plowed across the slope to connection with existing ends, Next to the trail is a drainage seep with a 10 foot (?) cement gutter and a 150 foot water pipe to the floor of the golf course. The site was bisected with a 6.5 foot fence for public safety. The slopes were hydroflocked with fluorescent green sterile annual grass seed which lies on the raw landscape like blue-green algae. The trial is very wet, sticky and muddy with paw and foot prints now. Lost are the willows and dead snags where Moby Jay, the albino scrub jay was sighted, where black-headed grosbeaks sang, where willow flycatchers plied their trade. The summer is lost in the 20 century, exists only in our collective memories: the fluttering yellow willow leaves illuminated in the last afternoon light. We also lost the view of the Montclair Valley where the deer and the antelope play in the median strip, ever wary of the grizzly bear. Iron effigies now commemorate this passing landscape of the 19th century. Where Highway 13 now roars was a plum orchard, a field of yellow flowers where tiger swallowtails played tag. A slow stream that cut through and joined the Sausal Creek headwaters. -Mark Rauzon back to top Stream Channel Restoration Project, Dimond Canyon Funder: City of Oakland Status: Contact: Description: In 2001, FOSC partnered with the City of Oakland on a major project to restore two acres of riparian habitat along a stretch of Sausal Creek in lower Dimond Canyon. After a contractor removed failing concrete structures, restored meanders to the stream course, and removed non-native vegetation, creek banks were protected with bioengineering techniques and the adjacent slopes were cleared of invasive, exotic vegetation. FOSC volunteers then propagated and planted about 20,000 native plants in canyon. In the two-year period afterward, FOSC volunteers have contributed more than 10,000 hours to this project. back to top Miscellaneous Projects in Dimond Canyon Status: ongoing Description: Various projects focusing on exotics removal (including trees), overstory management, trails maintenance, and erosion control. back to top | |||
Friends of Sausal Creek :: (510) 501-FOSC (3672) Email: coordinator@sausalcreek.org | |||||
