San Francisquito Creek

The San Francisquito Creek (Spanish for "Little San Francisco" - the "little" referring to size of the creek, not the saint) is a creek that flows into San Francisco Bay in California, United States of America. Its headwaters are in the Santa Cruz Mountains above Menlo Park, around 667m (2000 feet) above the Bay. Its major tributaries are called Bear Creek and Corte Madera Creek (both common names for creeks in California). These merge at the Searsville Lake in the Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve. The lake is formed by a dam built in 1892; below the lake the creek is known as the San Francisquito. The creek runs for a length described by different authorities as from 13 to 22 km (8 to 14 miles) before draining into the Bay. Its watershed is about 110 km² (42 square miles) in extent, including areas of San Mateo and Santa Clara counties. In one stretch it forms the boundary between the city of Palo Alto and the cities of East Palo Alto and Menlo Park, and thus between San Mateo and Santa Clara counties, reflecting the fact that it was originally used as the boundary between the lands of the Spanish Missions at San Francisco and Santa Clara. The tree from which Palo Alto takes its name, El Palo Alto, stands on the banks of the creek.

In normal winters the creek runs sluggishly in a deep arroyo; in summer it is usually dry. However, it is capable of flooding, and the risk has become more severe as increased urbanisation along its course has increased the area of impermeable surfaces. In the 1998 El Niño storms, the creek burst its banks; the resulting flood damage in the cities of Palo Alto, Menlo Park and East Palo Alto was estimated at $28 million. The creek's levees were also damaged.

The body responsible for the conservation and management of the Mid-Peninsula watersheds, of which the creek is one, is the Santa Clara Valley Water District. However, because of the significance of the creek in a densely populated area where environmental concerns and recent flooding are both salient in the public mind, a Joint Powers Authority (JPA) has been formed to address community concerns about the management of the creek. The JPA is currently undertaking or scoping various projects for the improvement of the creek, for example the stabilisation and revegetation of its banks. The members of the JPA are the city councils of Palo Alto, Menlo Park and East Palo Alto, the Santa Clara Valley Water District, and the San Mateo County Flood Control District. Stanford University and the San Francisquito Watershed Council are associate members. The latter body is a nonprofit stewardship organization, which is dedicated to fostering the health and diversity of the San Francisquito watershed. This brings together the bodies represented on the JPA with watershed residents, neighborhood associations, environmental organizations, and government agencies at state and federal level, to discuss creek-related concerns and collaborate on creek and watershed stewardship projects. It also organises projects to conserve and study to creek, using the energies of volunteer local residents.

The JPA had some questionable ethical behavior when its Executive Director Cynthia D'Agosta hired her nephew Kevin Murray several months after she was hired in August 2000. When the Board of Directors officially became aware of this in September 2005, they determined that no law had been broken and that this was outside their interpretation of nepotism. The two continue to lead the agency to this day.

External links

* [http://www.heynoah.com Santa Clara Valley Water District web site]
* [http://www.city.palo-alto.ca.us/knowzone/city_projects/environmental/default.asp San Francisquito Creek Joint Powers Authority]
* [http://www.sanfrancisquito.org/ San Francisquito Watershed Council]
* [http://geography.wr.usgs.gov/sfcreek/ US Geological Service project on the creek]
* [http://www.savesfbay.org/site/pp.asp?c=dgKLLSOwEnH&b=488971 Information about the conservation issues on the creek] on the Save the Bay website
* [http://www.museumca.org/creeks/1460-RescSFrancisquito.html Guide to the Creek] prepared by the Oakland Museum of California
* [http://www.city.palo-alto.ca.us/earlywarning/creekcam.html live images of San Francisquito Creek at West Bayshore Road in Palo Alto]
* [http://www.city.palo-alto.ca.us/earlywarning/creekmonitor-only.html current depth information for Palo Alto creeks, including San Francisquito Creek]

References

Information from interpretative plaques along the creek course, and from web sites noted above