Diablo Watch
Spring 2012 No. 53
Marsh Creek Parcels Protected Balancing Act New State Park and Our Second Mini-Volcano
CCWD Preserves Nine Square Miles
Kristin McCleery
We have a new State Park! 4000 acre Cowell Ranch near If you follow preservation around Mount Diablo closely, you Brentwood has been in the middle of a General Plan process know about many of Save Mount Diablo’s projects. You for the past five years. The deal to preserve most of Cowell might even know that with our allies, especially the East Bay was made in 2000 by then County Supervisor Joe Canciamilla Regional Park District and the East Contra Costa County Habitat (see page 14) as part of the tightening of the Urban Limit Line Conservancy, nearly 10,000 acres have been protected in the past (ULL). Four hundred eighty-one acres was left inside the ULL four years—almost 16 square miles. What might surprise you for development—which is that the Contra Costa became the Vineyards at Water District (CCWD) Marsh Creek, Trilogy— has also been on a land and the rest was placed buying spree. outside the line. Park and wildlife agencies and the As Big as Mount environmental community Diablo State Park raised $13.5 million to In 1995, the first purchase the rest. shovelfuls of dirt were Brentwood and the moved to construct the Vineyards’ developers paid Los Vaqueros dam and for the new State Park reservoir, which were General Plan process which intended to provide higher began in mid-2006. Save quality water to residents Mount Diablo focused of Central and Eastern on resource protection, Contra Costa County. future park expansion, park CCWD, which had begun management and new in 1936 as an agricultural Diablo view from Marsh Creek reservoir within the new “Marsh Creek State Park.” facilities. Others focused water district, diverted Upstream, Save Mount Diablo has protected ten parcels with segments of Marsh Creek. on the Park’s history, in water directly from the part related to the County’s Delta, but it increasingly first American settler, John Marsh, and the restoration of his struggled to manage declining water quality and it had just home. The most controversial issue was the park’s name, some a few days storage at Contra Loma reservoir, if there was an supporting “John Marsh” and others “Los Meganos” Historic emergency. State Park. Then budgets got tight, and the planning efforts Los Vaqueros reservoir was not the most common kind of ground to a halt. reservoir, along a river; instead it was a large mostly grassland Five years later the process has been completed and a public valley near the Delta; “off stream storage” in which higher hearing of the State Park Commission announced adoption of quality Winter and Spring flood waters would be pumped into the General Plan and the park name. Seth Adams, our Land the reservoir then blended with lower quality water later in Programs Director, was asked to speak at a Commission tour on the season. The project had been discussed for decades, with Jan. 26th, and Ron Brown, our Executive Director, testified at possible state or federal partners and in sizes up to one millionthe public hearing on Jan. 27th. Everyone was surprised when acre-feet, but finally in 1988 CCWD approved a local 100,000 the Commission chose “Marsh Creek State Park” as the name. acre-foot facility. (continued on page 13)
Self-Guided Hike: Curry Point Loop Partner, Hike and Thrive Buchanan Bypass is Back
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36 Months of Joseph Galvin Ranch Preserve Memories, Preserve Land Thanks to our Supporters
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