It was a call from Pat Vickroy of Gilroy that brought attention to the problem of trash in and along Gilroy’s waterways and just who’s responsible for gathering and hauling it away.
More calls followed. Makes you wonder who is minding the creeks, streams, sloughs and the river that wend their ways through and around the city and its environs. They’re home to critters and plants and they just make life a lot nicer—when clean.
It’s important. Trash that makes it way into the waterways, if not cleaned up before the rains, becomes a moveable mess that can clog culverts and under bridges and the channels themselves. When that happens the results range from minor to major flooding of streets and potentially homes. And then there’s the pollution.
Vickroy discovered trash at the Miller Slough at the Forest Street bridge a couple of months ago and the problem was highlighted in last week’s Dispatch. The trash is still there. In fact, there’s more than before.
Not too long ago scientists discovered that steelhead salmon vanished from the Pajaro River and its tributaries because of corporate dumping of killer pollutants that apparently had gone on for years. When it stopped, the fish returned. Go figure.
So, who is in charge of local waterways? Who is in charge of the Miller Slough, particularly where the debris has accumulated?
The city says responsibility to clean the slough at the Forest Street bridge falls on the Santa Clara Valley Water District, that behemoth agency that seems to spend money like it’s water itself. The district tells us, nope, that while some areas are their responsibility, others are not. So then why are district signs that warn against dumping and trespassing posted in some of those very areas?
The conservationists at Coastal Habitat Education & Environmental Restoration (CHEER) recently hauled a small feet of boats from a lagoon on the Pajaro River south of town. And over the past year they’ve removed tons of trash and tires and cars, too. CHEER is a nonprofit that operates on grants. And while they work closely with the state’s fish and wildlife department, why does the responsibility fall on citizen volunteers?
The water district folks say that the cleanup of debris in and along some of the banks of Miller Slough at the bridge, apparently from homeless encampments, is the responsibility of the landowners. The city’s public works folks tell us it’s up to the water district. Which is it?
Last year, that same city department collected and hauled away 38 tons of garbage and tires and the like from over 100 homeless encampments within city limits—much of it from our local waterways.
The state fish and game folks recently decided not only to post no dumping signs on the Pajaro and its tributaries, but also to hide video cameras on the waterways to catch dumpers and prosecute. Good idea.
So what are the city and the water district, and for that matter the county and the Regional Water Quality Control Board, really doing to ensure clear waterways?
The district says it regularly inspects “the creeks we own” for problems and fixes them. Regularly as in “annually.” It also sponsors an annual volunteer creek adoption program so citizens can do all the work.
And the district says it collaborates with cities, including Gilroy, to keep its waterways cleared of debris.
So why does Gilroy’s public works director insist that the Miller Slough, on Gilroy’s east side, is the district’s responsibility and the district’s map says otherwise?
And why does all the unsightly and potentially clogging and polluting and critter-killing trash languish ugly in plain sight there and elsewhere?
Makes you wonder who’s in charge, who’s talking with whom and whether whatever collaboration goes on is effective or is under minded by institutional egos or laziness.
Whatever the clog in the system, it has the potential if not cleared up to clog up the creeks and sloughs. Who wants that? And who would be liable for the damages?
