w a t c h
DI ABLO
Save Mount Diablo
Preserving the Mountain Since 1971
NO on Measure W in San Ramon:
Dry Creek:
by Troy Bristol
by Seth Adams
It’s the Wrong Direction - Defend the Urban Growth Boundary and Tassajara Valley
Our Newest Acquisition Project in Brentwood’s Beautiful Briones Valley Dry Creek, Save Mount Diablo’s most recent acquisition property—we closed escrow in September—is only 5.18 acres but it is a spectacular and strategic purchase, within a half mile of Brentwood subdivisions.
Dressed as an environmentally friendly General Plan 2030 Amendment, there is more to Measure W than San Ramon would like voters to know. It is a Trojan horse filled with promises of benefits when what’s really hidden deep inside its 2,000 pages is the breaking of the city’s Urban Growth Boundary in three places, and thousands of houses.
The property is also a half mile from the area threatened by the developer Measure F initiative in Brentwood this past spring. Save Mount Diablo was instrumental in defeating Measure F. Had it been approved, development speculation would have increased.
Scott Hein
The Thin Green Line Standing on top of Tassajara Ridge in Hidden Valley Open Space, on the eastern edge of San Ramon, you are immediately struck by the beauty of the Tassajara Valley. It is, undeniably, a special place and essential to San Ramon’s high quality of life.
Fall 2010 No. 50
Named for the alkaline stream which crosses it (and which still is not Dry Creek’s magnificent oaks frame Mount Diablo looking west from its perch near dry in October), “Dry Cowell Ranch State Park in Brentwood. Creek” is a rectangle of seasonal wetlands, Tassajara Creek, with its headwaters protected in Mt. Diablo and grassland rising up a knoll to include a beautiful stand of eight heritage blue oaks. Nice, but so what? State Park and Morgan Territory Regional Preserve, flows down and cuts through the flat valley bottom, twisting The parcel backs up to the new 3,659 acre Cowell Ranch through agricultural lands. Rolling grassland set off by large State Park (aka Los Medanos State Historic Park) and is at the oaks climbs to ridgelines defining the eastern and western heart of the East Contra Costa County Habitat Conservation edges of the Valley. Orchards and hay fields frame the Plan’s highest priority acquisition zone. It is literally Tassajara Creek corridor, and cattle graze the hillsides. surrounded by high quality endangered species habitat for To the north, Mt. Diablo’s peaks are dramatic, framed by San Joaquin kit fox, burrowing owls and California tiger the dark rugged Blackhills and the grassland knolls above salamander, and is a transitional zone from the seasonal (continued on page 10)
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Elections: Environmental Campaigns to Care About 4-5 DiRT: Praying for Rain 3 Our First Truck: PG&E Donates Rugged New Wheels 13
Guided Hike: Irish Canyon 4 Mountain Star Awards: New Discoveries and Leaders 7 Thanks to our Supporters 14-15 1