Guest opinion: A missed opportunity in Portola Valley? Guest opinion: A missed opportunity in Portola Valley? (July 13, 2005)

By Matt Stoecker

I realized early on how lucky I was to grow up in Portola Valley. We enjoyed a natural playground all around us as kids and a visionary community that was eager to preserve the landscape and raise us to appreciate it.

I realize now that the outdoor classroom we enjoyed shaped my life dramatically. I especially remember enjoying the creeks. My best friend's mom had a basket of "creek clothes" for us to put on so we could spend the day exploring Corte Madera Creek, Sausal Creek, and smaller creeks winding through Portola Valley.

No classroom can teach you about fish, frogs, water, erosion, rain, trees, new sounds, geology and yourself like a day spent exploring a creek. In fourth grade, our class kept a creek journal, and we were encouraged to explore the creek behind Ormondale School and record observations and write poetry about the creek environment and how we fit into it.

I discovered that rainbow trout occur in the creeks and later realized that, prior to the construction of Searsville Dam, 10-pound sea-run steelhead used to migrate up Corte Madera and Sausal creeks into the heart of Portola Valley.

In high school I became aware of how unique our town is and of the dedicated founders who helped create a model example of how a community can live light on the land. These experiences encouraged me to study freshwater ecology at UC Santa Barbara. I was proud when Portola Valley was discussed in one of my classes as a case study for sustainable development and open space.

When I first heard discussions about a new Portola Valley Town Center my first thought was "What a great opportunity!" Sausal Creek was confined to an underground concrete culvert pipe in order to build the existing Town Center on top of it. That's right, a creek runs under the entire length of the current Town Center in a buried concrete pipe.

Go to the small parking area next to the tennis courts and church and you will see it re-emerge from the black hole. As kids we used to dare each other to crawl through the dark culvert pipe under Town Center.

Knowing our town's progressive outlook on creek protection and open space, I was convinced that the new Town Center would surely correct this past wrong and restore Sausal Creek as a showpiece running through the new Town Center facilities. The town I know wouldn't have it any other way.

I discussed the concept with several town planners and friends on our own PV Creeks Committee. Everyone I talked to seemed to think the concept was perfectly fitting with our town's land development policies and especially current creek development regulations.

I was shocked to see the proposed design plan for the new Town Center that leaves Sausal Creek underground in the culvert pipe. Portola Valley, and other permitting agencies, would never allow a development today that proposed to bury hundreds of feet of creek in order to build on top of it. Would they?

Is the town saying, "No private landowners can develop on top of our precious creeks, but we can"? This proposed plan goes against all the creek regulations set forth by the town and the values set forth by the founders and community while jeopardizing the visionary model our town has set.

Let's not miss this important opportunity and turn our backs on years of setting the highest development and land preservation standards. My guess is that potential creek restoration costs to the town have been over-estimated and that available grant and funding opportunities have not been factored into the estimates.

The spring 2005 issue of the Portola Valley Post states that the "current decision is not to open up Sausal Creek at this time." Well, the time is now. This isn't going to happen in the future as a discussed possible next phase. If the proposed facilities are built, the creek's future is buried. Ripping apart the Town Center again in the future to re-establish the creek would cost many times more than just doing it now while all the equipment is mobilized and the property is being prepared for construction.

There is room for us to have all that is being proposed at the new Town Center while Sausal Creek runs through it. Let the Town Center Committee know that we want the town to follow its own creek and development standards we developed and stay consistent with our legacy of land stewardship. Matt Stoecker is an ecological consultant who has worked on several steelhead trout restoration projects in Portola Valley streams and throughout the San Francisquito Creek watershed.

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