CARE FOR THE EARTH IS A LOCAL CALL Welcome to the Marsh Creek Watershed
	September 2005

by Kathy Leighton
Photos by Russell Byrne

The home-spun philosopher, Wendell Berry, made the piercing comment, “Unless you know where you are, you don’t know who you are.” The words apply equally to the places on our nation, from California to Massachusetts, as well as to the most remote parts of the earth.

Berry was in good company with his view. His ethic that rooted a way of life in careful attention to the natural world in general, and devotion to a piece of land in particular, echoed the writings of Emerson, Thoreau, Muir, and Leopold before him.

More than 38 thousand of us here in East County live, work, and play in a very specific place, which is called the Marsh Creek Watershed. Our watershed is defined as the lands that drain from a highest point on Mount Diablo to the lowest point at Big Break on the western Delta. The north and south boundaries of the watershed are defined by the hills and ridges that separate it from the other 30 watersheds belonging to Contra Costa County alone.

Most maps depict artificial features imposed by roads, railroad lines, and political boundaries. Our watershed map, however, on the following pages shows the natural world as it actually is and does so by diagramming our relationship with our life-sustaining water as it passes through farms, open spaces, natural preserves, and across parking lots and paved roads. The water continually picks up nutrients, organisms, and pollutants along the course of its hydrologic journey back to the sea from which it came.

The map also shows the relationship among the things that influence the watershed. We can begin to identify where we are, as a people, in the scheme of things as an aid to building the sense of community that will bind us as a people to each other and to this dazzling East County land where we live.

Our Place in a World-wide System
If you look outside the red line boundary on the Marsh Creek Watershed Map you can see where the watershed fits in the context of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. The amazing 700 mile maze of waterways making up the Delta creates the largest source of fresh water in the state. The Delta ultimately collects nearly one of every two drops of rain or snow that fall on the state of California. It provides drinking water for 20 million Californians and irrigates 4.5 million acres of farmland. It supports the world’s sixth largest economy and hosts one of the richest diversities of life on Earth. Two-thirds of the state’s salmon pass through the Delta, as do nearly half of the waterfowl and shorebirds migrating along the Pacific Flyway.

Our Marsh Creek Watershed is centrally located on the Delta. The watershed buffers and mixes the runoff from every square inch between the top of Mt. Diablo to the discharge point where Marsh Creek flows into the Delta. Reaching the Delta is only the beginning, however, since the waters continue on a collective journey through the Suisun Bay, along the Carquinez Strait, into San Francisco Bay, and finally out to sea through the Golden Gate.

Our area watershed obviously plays an important role in preserving the purity of the water in the entire Bay Area. When you wash your hands, flush your toilet, clean your car, water your lawn, fertilize your flowers, or add pesticides to your garden there’s a possibility that some part of the chemicals you use will become part of the watershed that’s flowing into the Delta and then outward to the sea. Chemicals that become part of the great wheel turning through the natural systems of the world remain in the system forever. Barry Commoner reminded us of the grim reality that everything put into the system stays in the system. “There is no ‘away,’” he said.

A drop of water splashed on the side of Mt. Diablo will float past a long-abandoned mercury mine with tailings that still put toxic chemicals into Marsh Creek waters. It then flows through the Marsh Creek reservoir, past blooming cherries, apricots and peaches, through Brentwood, and then over a concrete check dam (which will soon have fish ladders permitting the area’s salmon to continue upstream), down the smooth sided channels of the lower flood-control passages, and finally out into the Delta at Big Break.

Just the Facts

• The Marsh Creek Watershed is the county’s second largest watershed.
• The surface area of the watershed is 128 square miles, which is the equivalent of 60,000 football fields laid side-by-side and end-to-end.
• Marsh Creek itself is the longest creek in the county at 34.57 miles.
• The average annual rainfall in the watershed is 17 inches per year, but can fluctuate wildly from peaks to flats and year to year.
• The estimated daily flow at the mouth of Marsh Creek, at Big Break, is 28.3 cfs (cubic feet per second), which is about 540 gallons per minute or the equivalent of 1,415 garden hoses running simultaneously.
• A 100-year flood could pour water out of Marsh Creek at 5,740 cfs, or more than 200 times the normal rate.
• The State Water Resources Control Board lists Marsh Creek as an impaired water body with harmful pollutants including mercury, nickel, and other metals.
• Major tributaries include Briones, Dry, Deer, and Sand creeks. Minor tributaries include Curry, Perkins, Sycamore, Round Valley, and Dunn creeks
• The lower nine miles of Marsh Creek and the lower reaches of Dry, Sand, and Deer creeks have been straightened and confined in channels to provide flood control.

Marsh Creek Solutions
The recent rapid development of housing and commercial properties in the East County has stressed our natural resources. But none of our problems lack solutions. New developments, for example, are being designed with a view to conserving resources and not encroaching too much onto the margins of creek beds.

Narrow flood control waterways have been built along the lower stretches of Marsh Creek and purposely denuded of vegetation to allow unimpeded passage of floodwaters. One of these bare-walled channels create the effect of an unsightly ditch rather than a pleasant waterway. We could solve our flood control problems, restore riparian habitat, and increase property values and home enjoyment by simply widening creek corridors sufficiently to provide run off in a 100-year flood, as well as permitting trees, plants, and bushes to grow beside the creek right-of-way.

Supporting our local farmers and maintaining fertile East County land for agricultural purposes will have the effect of slowing the conversion of farmland to commercial and residential developments.

Local residents are becoming part of the solution for the problems affecting the watershed. Community volunteers are responding to the challenge of putting the creek back into Marsh Creek. We are doing salmon surveys, plant restorations, creek clean-ups, providing school curricula and interpretive signage, mapping, testing water quality, planning trails, and doing wildlife photography and documentation. We’ve been appearing before government agencies to lobby on behalf of the watershed and have been working with scientists and artists in order to fine-tune our arguments and presentations.

We are not grim prophets of doom, but have been socializing and having fun as we work to preserve the health of Mother Nature. We’re building partnerships and collaborating on win-win situations to restore our local watershed while restoring plants, animals, and natural habitats to the watershed.

...Where Credit is Due
The good work underway in Marsh Creek demands at the very least, a serious thank you to primary sponsors and participants:

Sponsors
• The California Bay-Delta Authority
• California State Coastal Conservancy
• California Department of Conservation
• Pacific Gas and Electric Company
• Community Watershed Stewardship Grants Program of the Contra Costa Watershed Program
• 110° – East County Lifestyle Magazine
Participants
• The Natural Heritage Institute
• The Contra Costa Resource Conservation District
• The Delta Science Center at Big Break
• The Friends of the Marsh Creek Watershed
• The employees of the cities of Brentwood and Oakley an earnest collaboration

Change is often slow, but with patience and perseverance we can make a difference in our world. We must shape tomorrow, rather than letting it shape us. A prosperous watershed will create a healthy living space as well as a productive economy.

Let’s work together to maintain the momentum. We’re on a roll! Contact us at www.ccrcd.org/marsh.html now.

If you don’t have access to a computer on the Internet, call the East Bay Regional Park District’s Black Diamond Mines Regional Preserve in Antioch (925-757-2620) and ask them for a Marsh Creek field trip.

Wendell Berry said, I’d want to get closer, walk around on it, even get down on my hands and knees. That’s how I prefer to see the Earth.

Join with us in the important, rewarding, and happy service to the watershed that provides so much beauty and that supports the lives of all of us residents.