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Creek Survey Yields Data and Lessons

Citizens conducting an environmental survey of the East Bay's San Leandro Creek this April learned a thing or two about scientific rigor. Those doing bird counts, for example, had to stop themselves from recording more bright-feathered warblers than drab gray finches. Those measuring dissolved oxygen learned that when the creek got too shallow to take a sample the way they'd been taught, the answer wasn't to improvise with sampling technique.

But with technical help, the 35 volunteers from Friends of San Leandro Creek who carried out the 10-week pilot creek survey turned in some "data we can have faith in," according to the S.F. Estuary Institute's Mike Rigney. During the survey, the volunteers measured five water quality parameters - water temperature, dissolved oxygen content, pH, electrical conductivity and turbidity - at four points along the lower third of the creek. They also evaluated fish habitat conditions and conducted bird counts.

Before they began the survey, the volunteers received careful training in how to follow three highly specific testing protocols, and the quality of their work was also checked in the field. Some of the data they collected are shown in these charts, and the rest is due out in an official report soon.

"To see all our work and all those hours laid out in plain numbers and on paper is the most exciting part of all," says volunteer Rick Richards. "All at once, you can see the actual state of your creek, and you know those numbers wouldn't be there without your volunteerism."

The pilot ecological survey was a cooperative project involving funding from the Alameda County Flood Control District and Alameda Countywide Clean Water program, with technical support from the S.F. Estuary Institute, the Coyote Creek Riparian Station and Woodward-Clyde Consultants. Citizen-based volunteer monitoring is one component of the San Leandro Creek Watershed Awareness Program, a model project funded by the Flood Control District and implemented by the Institute and the Friends organization. To date, the program has not only done environmental monitoring, but also held watershed festivals, printed T- shirts, stenciled stormdrains, done bank restoration and cleaned up trash - last year they built a float for the city's cherry festival completely out of junk retrieved from the creek.

In follow-up to the pilot survey, Rigney and Woodward-Clyde's Dr. Revital Katznelson are working to refine the testing protocols used by the volunteers. Katznelson says there were numerous lessons learned, including the need to ensure that at least one trained volunteer appeared for every sampling excursion over the 10-week period.

Other lessons emerged from the ecology of San Leandro Creek itself. Rigney discovered, for example, that in a short 7-mile-long creek like San Leandro, massive releases from the creek's half dozen urban stormwater outlets had a much bigger impact on water quality than they had on the longer creeks with more diverse watersheds in Santa Clara County, where he first developed the testing protocols. Katznelson adds that conditions were also changed by a major, unanticipated release from the Chabot reservoir.

"What we're after is producing protocols applicable to a range of changing conditions and water levels," she says. One answer in this case may be to increase the number of sampling points and to locate them away from stormwater outlets.

Rigney says he also learned that in intermittent streams such as those in the East Bay, they may have to do more hydrological research to better anticipate where they'll find water at low flow levels. In San Leandro's case, the level dropped too low at some of the sampling points for the volunteers to get their equipment underwater, and they weren't sure what to do instead.

"We learned that they need to have free and constant access to technical support for immediate problem solving," says Katznelson, "even if it means calling me on a Saturday morning."

Rigney says this winter Friends plans to expand sampling along the entire length of the creek and start habitat mapping and fish migration monitoring. The Institute will remain available as part of plans to extend technical support to ten riparian stations regionwide this year.

Contact: Mike Rigney (510)231-9539 or Friends of San Leandro Creek (510)569-9405

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