This just released report outlines the “emergency bank stabilization work” defined in Wednesdays agenda. The lodge will be destroyed. Check out this report in the Chronicle and this in the times:

Installation of a sheet pile wall can be done without draining the beaver ponds and requires very little bank disturbance. This type of construction does not require heavy machinery to be in the creek. A large crane would be placed in the sidewalk/park area along Castro Street. Castro Street will be closed until the work is completed.

The report is too big to post, but write the city and ask for the “Alhambra Creek Bank Stabilization Report” dated September 25th. Call or write NOW. Be there Wednesday. And help by donating to the beaver legal defense fund.

Beaver Supporters Weigh In:

Creekside homeowner Kathi and her neighbor write “Does this mean the city is responsible for repairs now needed all along the creek? The bank in my backyard was undercut by currents. When can I expect the crew to arrive?”

Beaver Supporter and science writer for SFEP Lisa Owens Vianni: “500K is a lot of money. How much is the building worth? Might be worth it to find out how much it would cost to move it.”

From Beaver supporter and former council member Bill Wainwright:”This is pretty disturbing. Not just from a beaver perspective, but more broadly and of greater public threat across the board — like the upcoming general plan revision from the perspective of government secrecy.”

More from are good friends at Bay Area Bird Blog.

It’s an all too typical story, stretching back a few decades in this case: first, property owners hem in a creek by building closer and closer to it on each side. Then, the creek floods, and the property owners and/or the city build retaining walls to contain the creek. During non-flood years, the walls give the property owners the sense of security they need to justify building even closer to the creek; eventually they’re right on top of it. Then, something happens — a high water year, or some beavers that build dams and a lodge, or just aging of the infrastructure — that threatens the retaining walls. The property owners sue the city, the city caves, and public money is spent to mitigate the problem. We’ve seen it in New Orleans and Galveston on a large scale, and we’re seeing it in Martinez on a small scale.

In conversation this weekend with Skip Lisle, we talked about our concerns for the watershed work proposed for discussion in Wednesday’s Agenda. Skip shared my thought that this could significantly impact the beavers and felt that he could offer no assurance of their safety without clearly reviewing the proposal outline. He emphasized that the allegations of the property owners have not been proven, and that since the risk of disrupting the beavers is so high there is a need to verify their concerns before any work begins.

With that in mind, I spent some time researching the grant, ground penetrating radar (GPR) and the California Environmental Qualities Act. (By the way, I never appreciated before what a truly insightful piece of legistlation this was. It’s a great read. Here’s my favorite part:

§ 21000. Legislative intent(c) There is a need to understand the relationship between the maintenance of high-quality ecological systems and the general welfare of the people of the state, including their enjoyment of the natural resources of the state.

Worth A Dam is sending a letter to the city outlinining our concerns and the legal basis for them. We offer four proposals, which I thought I’d share so that you can start thinking in terms of what the city needs to do to protect the beavers as it undertakes this work.

So this week the beavers offically “lawyered up” with a little help from Worth A Dam. A sharp environmental attorney recommended by our friends at the sierra club and the estuary project wrote a letter to the city stating, among other things, that removal of the beavers presented a significant impact on the environment and may be a violation of the standards of CEQA. He reviewed the Friends of Lake Skinner case we talked about before, emphasized the limits of city privacy outlined in the Brown Act and encouraged the city to do the right thing.

At the end of the day there was a 6:00pm release of the agenda for wednesday’s meeting. It contained a plan for implementing the recommendations from the subcommittee report, including a proposal to begin work on an “emergency bank stabilization project” effective immediately. Encouraging aspects include the plan to adopt the subcommittee’s recommendation for a water quality testing, a creek walk, volunteer work, and educational opportunities. Less encouraging is the promise to work with alot of nice agencies EXCEPT Worth A Dam.

We anticipate developing partnerships with the Alhambra Watershed Council, Friends of Alhambra Creek, Alhambra Unified School District and other community organizations as part of the grant application

Gee I wonder why we were overlooked? How would you know the best way to take the beavers needs into account without including the people who know them best? Let’s look a little closer at this agenda. Check out item 5.

CITY MANAGER

5.	Consider resolutions authorizing emergency work to stabilize the Alhambra Creek bank.

A)	Resolution Making findings and authorize the Assistant City Manger Community and Economic Development to file a Notice of Exemption in accordance with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA);

B)	Resolution declaring the Emergency Creek Bank Stabilization, Alhambra Creek, Escobar to Marina Vista Project, an emergency project in accordance with California Public Contract Code section 22050; and

C)	Approving the Emergency Creek Bank Stabilization, Alhambra Creek, Escobar to Marina Vista Project and allocating up to $500,000 of General Fund reserves to C3007 to complete the project and authorizing the City Manager to execute a construction contract for same.

6.	Comment(s)/Update(s)/Report(s).

Ahh there’s the bee in the rose. The work to be done on the bank should be done with an exemption for CEQA meaning without any regard to the environmental impact (or the beavers) whatsoever. Emergency Creek Bank Stabilization. What exactly is the emergency? I’m hard pressed to decide if its the election or the rainy season. Hmm, which one is more easy to anticipate and plan for? The standard is that they are not supposed to work in the creek after October 15th execpt for emergencies, hence the emergency status and the bogus report in the gazette that city staff “fell into a beaver hole” reviewing the dredging site.

Last night I was encouraged by Julian and Linda’s enthusiasm about this development. Today I’m not so sure. From where I sit it looks like the city has plans to “use” the beavers as a grant writing tool. The property owners have successfully “used” the beavers to get what they’ve wanted all along. And the beavers (and the people who care about them) will pay the price.

The beavers need your support. Come to the meeting wednesday.

Photo Cheryl Reynolds

Did you ever type those numbers into a calculator as a child and see what it reads? (Go ahead, I’ll wait. Remember to turn it.) Well I got the most interesting email from Beaver friend Igor Skaredoff about the 300,000 settlement reached yesterday regarding the relatively small 2006 oil spill. Turns out 50,000 of that money has to go to the city of Martinez towards a Marina project, which, since the beavers are in the tidal area of the creek it is theoretically possible that that money could be used to implement the bank stabilization/flood management proposals outlined in the report.

In its settlement, Equilon Enterprises LLC, which operates the Shell Martinez Refinery, agreed to pay a civil penalty of $250,000 to Fish and Game and $50,000 to the city of Martinez, which will use the finds for a community project along the waterfront, according to Lesher.

Igor thinks it’s worth pursuing, and this could be paired with matching grant money if it was done right. This could solve the city’s lawsuit problems and take care of the beavers at the same time. Mark Ross was less hopeful, saying that these moneys are often very specific in their wording and may need to be for the Marina proper. Still, the Granger’s wharf area is part of the Marina and with the beavers working as far down as the train bridge, I would say that’s possible. Remember, healthy beavers mean a healthy creek, so its work worth thinking about.

The official word from the city engineer is that the three “notches” in the birm are intentional outlets to allow the high waters to flow back to the creek and to allow high tide to flow up to the plain and create a wetlands. Yes it sounds fishy to me too. And speaking of fishy, somebody better dump a load of mosquito fish in all that standing water because they are having a breeding party over there.

PS If that’s a “notch” I completely understand why they wanted to “notch the dams”.

Positive news: I’m off this morning to Rona Zollinger’s ESA class to talk about beavers and their effect on the habitat. I’m hoping we can work out a regular ESA appearance on the blog, and apparently two students have already signed up to be on a committee with us. How cool is that? Wish me luck…

Update:

Met with 24 members of America’s future and talked beavers for an hour. Great group of kids, very attentive and interested, and lots of informative questions. We have three new “volunteers” that will get an hour a week of class time to work on our “cause”. I gave them tee-shirts and all three had donned them before I left. Rona did a great job of getting them down to work, and had each of them say something they got out of the lecture before I left. I heard a lot of “I never knew that before” and also some very genuine compliments from some tough looking critics who remarked “That really made me pay attention the whole time, and I usually don’t”.

Thanks Rona. The next step will be deputizing your students to do this training program for the lower grades. Can’t wait.

Maybe there should be one of those 365 pull off calendars entitled something like “what’s Martinez doing to hurt the beavers today?” I’m sure there are enough entries to fill this decade at least. Today the “too thin birm” was punchtured in three places to allow toxic silty water to drain into Alhambra Creek. Good thing they hired Hess, this is a full time job and you wouldn’t want to leave this much destruction in the hands of just anybody.

Ever feel like you’re trapped in a 1970’s production of Charlotte’s web? Think about it: we’re all Fern. Here something we care about is threatened by the status quo - the way it’s always done, “don’t be sentimental - this is just the way it is”. We know that something we care about is worth fighting for. We keep working to show the city that our beavers are terrific, unique, worth viewing. We decide to use our untested talents in completely new ways to take care of what we love. We send our research team out to find new and interesting beaver facts that we can weave into our “web”. People come from all over to appreciate the beavers. They bring their children and grandparents. They tell their friends. We beam like Wilbur with the hope that maybe now, things will be different.

And the city just wants its bacon.

Remember last fall when the city issued its response to the lawyer hired by the main street merchants saying that in order to avoid litigation the beavers needed to be exterminated? It was late October. I was always surprised at the time that no one seemed to notice that the city’s “response” was dated two days before the attorney’s letter. I could only assume that he must be a very skilled attorney indeed who was used to getting action 48 hours before he asked for it.

Well, its Litigation Season again.

At last Wednesday’s city council meeting we learned that that the closed door session concerned a pending lawsuit regarding the beavers. (Gosh those critters are litigious!) There is apparently another closed session tonight. The mayor has recused himself from this action for reasons that I’m not sure I understand. Ostensibly because he has a client who owns creek property as well so might have a vested interest in the outcome.

If the complainants owned the entire creek they could have gotten rid of the beavers long ago. They own the East half of the property line, and have therefore been unable to take action to remove the beavers on their own. Even if the city were to get rid of the beavers now they have still allowed them to stay for two years and would theoretically be liable for the damage done during that time. i imagine the new threat comes with a promise of “Do it now and we won’t hold you responsible for what happened before.”

We are left with speculation.

What is known from a check of open access, is that there is no new litigation filed yet against the city. (although my-my-my the city gets sued a lot!) There was a geotechnical report filed last February claiming damage from the raised water table and burrowing activity on the bank. We were told that a “peer review” would happen to evaluate the accuracy of these claims. At the April meeting the mayor did not allow a vote on the beavers pending this “peer review” and as late as June it still hadn’t happened. However, Julian did learn from the city manager that it eventually occurred. There was an implication in that conversation that some of the findings were questionable.

More speculation.

If the geotechnical report was unconvincing when looked at by another geologist, then why the sudden panic about litigation? Possibly the city said “we’re not scared” and the complainants responded with a further expert assessment. If I were worried about tunneling on my creek I’d pay for one of those sonic x-rays where you can see for sure what’s under ground. Obviously they didn’t do that because the city wanted to lower the dam last week and “check”. Maybe there is no new expert, just a new spin on the old report.

Or maybe the city has decided that it can push back.

Which leads us to the mystery of the mayor’s recusal. I understand that there are legal reasons for him to stay out of the mix, but honestly there are many instances where all the council should have stayed out and instead stayed in, and visa versa. I think we have to look below the surface for the motivation here. Which might be that he doesn’t want to be blamed for getting rid of the beavers, or to be credited for keeping them. You guess which is more likely.

SIgh. The subcommittee gave the city every possible solution for keeping the beavers. Worth A Dam has proven its ability to raise funds and take its stewardship seriously. The beavers have continued to draw support and attention from across the nation and the world. What does it take to tip the scale?

I received an email today from someone who asked, “The fate of the beavers could be decided in a closed door session? Is that underhanded or normal?”

I shook my head sadly. Underhanded AND normal.

Here’s the watershed I visited last weekend: Big River in Mendocino, the home of my first beaver sighting. It never occurred to me that I’d eventually see more wildlife downtown than on vacation. Sunday’s visit was great otter family viewing though, so enjoy.