|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
For 26 years, Rachel Alvelais has enjoyed her regular walks along the Stevens Creek Trail by Whisman Park. Lately though, she has noticed changes to the creek that are inspiring and disquieting. “It’s a geologist’s dream,” Alvelais said, referring to rippled layers of sedimentation visible from the creek’s eroded banks. “But it’s also a bit worrisome to see the creek diverted so much.”
This year’s winter storms brought an unprecedented amount of precipitation and significant flooding to the area, followed by strong windy weather in the spring that brought down trees and large branches. The onslaught of rain, combined with massive debris blockages, exacerbated erosion along Stevens Creek and created three trouble spots in need of fixes, according to a memo in May.
The trouble spots include Sleeper Avenue, which has severe soil erosion under the Sleeper Avenue Bridge; and Whisman Park, which has significant bank erosion and fallen trees on a section of the creek north of Middlefield Road, essentially the same area observed by Alvelais.
City officials say there’s a third location in need of mitigation at Mockingbird Lane in Sunnyvale, which has a storm outlet that drains to a part of Stevens Creek owned by the city of Mountain View
Responding to the storm damage, the city earmarked $400,000 from its discretionary funds for creek assessment, erosion repair and rehabilitation along the Stevens and Permanente Creeks, which was added onto the city’s 2023-24 capital improvement program.
The situation at Whisman Park is particularly complicated. The city needs to coordinate with Caltrans to address the issue of storm water drainage from State Route 85. It also needs to coordinate with Santa Clara Valley Water District, which has easement rights over that area of Stevens Creek, according to the memo.
Last year, Valley Water performed erosion repair on Stevens Creek, just upstream of Middlefield Road, as part of its Stream Maintenance Program that typically occurs between the months of June and October. “Our goal, countywide, is to ensure that our flood protection projects are working as intended. And that often entails maintenance of sediment removal, erosion repairs and different minor maintenance activities to ensure that we’re meeting that objective,” said Cody Houston, a civil engineer at Valley Water.
Valley Water is working with the city to determine the steps needed to repair Whisman Park’s eroded banks, but so far the maintenance projects scheduled for this summer do not include that specific site, Houston said. Along Stevens Creek, maintenance work includes sediment removal and bank repair downstream of La Avenida, and sediment removal along Permanente Creek upstream of Highway 101, according to Valley Water’s website.
Valley Water does remove trees from the creek, but that the decisions are made on a case-by-case basis that is factors in easements, property rights and whether the fallen tree offers habitat value. “It kind of depends where the downed tree is and what the tree is doing, the location that it fell in, because the other thing that we really try to balance is the environmental aspect of the creek, as well as its ability to convey flows,” Houston said.
As Valley Water works with the city to identify areas of creek remediation, it encourages the public to report problematic areas in its jurisdiction using its website, Access Valley Water.
“It’s great to have our community out there, have their eyes and ears on the creeks as well, and letting us know what they’re seeing,” Houston said. “Because it just helps us better prioritize and make decisions.”
Thank you for an excellent example of local journalism. I’ve wondered about the creek all spring, but I’d never have time to find all this out on my own. Thank you Mountain View Voice for responding when I posted the question on your site, and for quickly getting so much information. I’ll feel better when I walk along the Stevens Creek Trail knowing what is involved in addressing the situation and that the responsible agency are already working on it.