Restore and Protect Our Streams for all to Enjoy!
Become a member or renew your annual membership with a secure, tax-deductible gift (suggested donation is $50 per membership). When you join the Santa Clara County Creeks Coalition, you’re supporting the efforts to make our creeks healthy and beautiful once again – reversing the damage done to them through decades of urban development – and creating opportunities to enjoy them in many ways. All members will receive our electronic newsletter three times a year and updates on our work.
Partners
Sierra Club: The Water Committee of the Loma Prieta Chapter of the Sierra Club has been a supporter of the efforts to restore the ecological health of Santa Clara County Streams for many years and in many ways.
Katja Irvin, chair of the Water Committee, has been an ongoing fountain of letters to the Santa Clara Valley Water District supporting stream friendly policy changes and urging higher priority be assigned to the restoration of the steelhead trout fishery on Santa Clara County streams. In 2015, the Chapter formally affiliated with the Creeks Coalition to create the “Restore Coyote Creek Project”. This project seeks to restore the steelhead trout fishery, revegetate the creek with native plants and remove invasive ones, increase opportunities for recreation and education along Coyote Creek and respectfully relocate the homeless to off-creek supportive housing.
Center for Community Learning and Leadership (CCLL), San Jose State University: CCLL’s mission is to link faculty and student learning to the needs of the community-at-large.
Early in 2014, CCLL adopted the Restore Coyote Creek as a project which it wished to encourage faculty and student engagement. Since that time, faculty and students in advertising, journalism, performing arts, physical education, and environmental studies have developed educational projects that have benefitted students, faculty, the university and the community.
Santa Clara University: Department of Environmental Studies: Dr. Iris Stewart-Frey, Assistant Professor and Chair of the Department of Environmental Studies and Sciences at SCU, has been involved with the Creeks Coalition in conducting temperature measurements along Los Gatos Creek to identify potential areas where temperature management would reduce temperatures to levels conducive to the rearing of steelhead trout.
Coyote Creek Homeless Stream Stewards: This group was founded in 2014 with support from the Creeks Coalition to assist the homeless in managing their own trash and to help volunteer groups and public agencies to achieve a trash free Coyote Creek. The group was disbanded soon after its founding because of opposition to any activity that could be interpreted as “condoning” or “encouraging” homeless occupation of the creek banks. In October 2015, the group was reconstituted on north Coyote Creek on lands not owned by the City. In the following nine months, the CCHSS removed 58000 pounds of trash from the banks of the creek – demonstrating that the homeless when encouraged and supported can be part of the solution to the creekside trash problem – not only the cause of the problem.
Santa Clara Valley Water District (SCVWD): The SCVWD is a state established special district with a budget of $350 million per year and responsibility for water supply, flood control and watershed stewardship. In 2001, the Water District amended its legislative mandate to include “protecting, enhancing and restoring streams, riparian corridors and natural resources” – a significant step towards environmental responsibility and a step away from seeing itself as solely itself as providing water and flood control services to fuel the economic engine of Silicon Valley without regard to environmental impacts. The Creeks Coalition has been involved with the SCVWD in since 2005 in promoting environmentally friendly changes to District policy with respect to streams. In recent years, the Creeks Coalition has secured Water District grants to create Trash Free Creeks and assisted other entities in securing grants to do the planning for improving fish passage on Stevens Creek and Coyote Creek and to do the planning to hire the homeless to remove invasive plants and revegetate with native ones on Coyote Creek.
City of San Jose: The Creeks Coalition is participating in San Jose’s Environmental Service Division’s efforts to achieve trash free creeks and in the City’s Parks Department’s Anti-Litter and Anti-Grafitti Program. We are also exploring possibilities of constructing a native plant and butterfly habitat garden in a City park on Coyote Creek.
Working Partnerships: Working Partnerships USA seeks to “tackle the root causes of inequality and poverty by leading collaborative campaigns for quality jobs, healthy communities, equitable growth and vibrant democracy.” The Creeks Coalition provided technical assistance to WP-USA to secure a grant from the Water District to evaluate the feasibility of hiring the homeless to train them to remove invasive plants and revegetate with native plants along Coyote Creek. The project will hold its kickoff meeting in September.
Friends of Stevens Creek Trail: The Friends of Stevens Creek Trail is committed to the “completion, enhancement, and enjoyment of the Stevens Creek and Permanente Creek Trails and Wildlife Corridors.” We are working with them to support implementation of their grant from the Water District to develop a plan to remove eight barriers to steelhead trout migration on Stevens Creek with the support from the Cities of Cupertino, Mountain View and Sunnyvale and the Mid-Peninsula Regional Open Space District.
Campus Community Association: The CCA is a neighborhood organization serving the Naglee Park neighborhood east of San Jose State University and adjacent to Coyote Creek. The CCA is an associate member of the “Restore Coyote Creek” project. We are working with them to implement a grant from the Water District to develop a preliminary plan to remove the make habitat improvements for steelhead trout at the Water District and County of Santa Clara Metcalf Ponds facility on Coyote Creek.
Coyote Creek Neighborhood Association: The Coyote Creek Neighborhood Association is a neighborhood organization serving the area adjacent to Shady Oaks Park along Coyote Creek in South San Jose. CCNA is an associate member of the “Restore Coyote Creek” project. We have begun conversations with them about developing a native plant and butterfly habitat garden in their neighborhood.
Sustainable San Jose 3D: This group engages neighbors in San Jose City Council District 3 to live more sustainably and lessen the impacts of climate disruption locally. They seek to practice community resilience and better stewardship of our local environment through community activities, coalition-building and political action. They are an associate member of the “Restore Coyote Creek” Project.
Corporate Partners: Our corporate partners notify their employees of opportunities for community service, such as our monthly trash cleanups. As of September 2016, these include Cisco, SanDisk, Microsoft, and LinkedIn.