Saratoga News

Photograph by Robert Scheer

Foothill School students search for aquatic bugs in Saratoga Creek as part of a classroom project.

Science Resource

School children learn about ecology by studying Saratoga Creek

By Suzanne Bohan

A nighttime hush has fallen over Saratoga Creek. The deep, soothing sounds of tree frogs, western toads and red-legged frogs that once filled the night air has disappeared. Even the bullfrog, an aggressive newcomer bought in by early settlers, has vanished from the stretch of creek running through Saratoga.

"It's a mystery, a fascinating mystery," said Chris Fischer, program manager for the Coyote Creek Riparian Station in Alviso, a group tasked with restoring South Bay creeks.

Saratoga Creek begins high in Sanborn County Park. David Johnston, a biological consultant and teacher, hiked the five-mile stretch from its headwaters to downtown Saratoga, traversing much of it by hopping from one creek boulder to another.

He saw springs flowing in a grassy oak woodland from the creek's pristine headwaters. Tributaries and other springs add to its flow as it descends the mountains. Johnston described one particularly steep stretch of 10- and 20-foot waterfalls, with beautiful green moss flourishing in the mist. Because of the numerous springs, Saratoga Creek flows year-round, allowing rainbow trout, Sacramento suckers and minnows--all native species--to thrive.

Saratoga's pioneers praised Saratoga Creek as "abundantly supplied with mountain trout," and "delightfully shaded, wild and romantic."

The pioneers also used Saratoga Creek to power the town's first industries. Sawmills, paper mills, tanneries, flour mills and other factories lined its banks. Today, the sole plant on the creek is the San Jose Water Company's micro-filtration plant, about one mile above the Village.

"This plant provides some of the purest drinking water," said Dr. Scott Yo, vice president of water quality for the San Jose Water Company. The facility, which has been on the creek for decades, was rebuilt in 1994. Yo says it has won national and international awards for innovation. Most of the water from the plant is consumed in Saratoga. It operates from January to early summer, after which creek flow is too low to justify operation.

Orchards succeeded Saratoga's early industries at about the turn of the century. Johnston, who was raised in Saratoga in the 1950s and 1960s, says orchards once bordered much of the creek. When Saratoga Creek occasionally flooded, Johnston said, there wasn't much concern, since the flooding often proved beneficial for the orchards.

Housing began to supplant orchards after World War II. Then, in 1955, a tremendous flood inundated communities throughout the South Bay. In response, the Santa Clara Valley Water District (then called the Santa Clara County Flood Control and Water Conservation District) began aggressive flood-control projects at South Bay creeks. Many, like Los Gatos Creek, ended up funneled through concrete-lined channels. In contrast to many South Bay communities, Saratogans, prizing the beauty of their creek, fought to keep Saratoga Creek from such a fate.

The city's Parks and Trails Master Plan notes that Saratoga citizens resisted flood-control projects by the water district that would "destroy the aesthetic value of watercourses." Proposals to build concrete channels were "heavily disapproved of" by citizens. The water district responded by proposing alternatives that left more riparian habitat intact, such as digging a deeper channel for the creek.

Willys Peck, a former San Jose Mercury News reporter who was raised in Saratoga, recalled, "After the flood in 1955, we started seeing bulldozers coming down Saratoga Creek." They dug up about three to four feet of the creek bed behind his home.

There was talk of developing a creekside trail park from Toll Gate Road to Prospect Road, but according to George White, associate planner with the city of Saratoga, vehement opposition to the proposal by creekside residents led the City Council to prohibit development of a linear creekside park through private property.

While Saratoga Creek has retained much of its historic natural beauty, wildlife living in and around the creek has dwindled over the past several decades.

Bill Giannini, owner of Saratoga Springs Picnic Resort, recalled that in the 1920s and '30s, people had no trouble catching their limit of 25 trout in a day. Today, resort guests fish from a pool in the creek stocked with rainbow trout.

Peck also remembered stories about people in the 1920s catching their limit while fishing from the Saratoga-Sunnyvale Road bridge.

Johnston, who lives in the creekside home he grew up in, remembered seeing tree frogs, western pond turtles, toads, red-legged frogs, bullfrogs, lizards and trout in years past. Years ago, he saw a bobcat near the creek, and even a mountain lion drinking from it just above town. Johnston says his last glimpse of the wildcat was its long, yellow tail disappearing into the brush.

"I haven't seen a pond turtle since I was a boy," Johnston said. He last spotted a western toad in the early 1980s and the red-legged frog in 1974. (The red-legged frog is now listed as a threatened species by the federal government.) Johnston said tree frogs have disappeared from the downtown creek, although they still reside in some Saratoga neighborhoods off the creek. Up until a few years ago, Johnston continued to hear a lone bullfrog, then that, too, disappeared.

Amphibians are disappearing around the world, said Jeannine DeWald, wildlife biologist with the California Department of Fish and Game. Acid rain is implicated in their demise. She said the state department does not have information on why frogs have vanished from parts of Saratoga Creek. But the acid rain theory doesn't explain why tree frogs are still living in Saratoga, in the upper watershed and on Saratoga Creek in Santa Clara.

Johnston and other wildlife experts suspect that bullfrogs and crawfish, both non-native species, are eating the eggs of the native frog species.

Johnston said feral cats, who often live on creek banks, may also be decimating wildlife. Not only do they prey on amphibians, but they reduce wild bird populations, and Johnston has noticed there are no longer lizards living on the creek in downtown Saratoga.

"We can't do much about bullfrogs and crayfish," Johnston said, "but if a feral cat is sick, the humane thing to do is to take it to the Humane Society. " He encourages helping healthy cats find homes, but he cautioned against leaving out pet food to keep feral cats from preying on wildlife, because the food can also attract raccoons, opossums and rats.

"Creekside residents should be good custodians of the creek," Johnston urged. He said they should take extra care when using herbicides and pesticides to prevent runoff into the creek. Throwing yard clippings onto the creek bank can smother native species, leading to loss of habitat and erosion, he said.

Landscaping with native plants helps native wildlife, Johnston said. Non-native plants like ivy and periwinkle may seem benign, he said, but native birds like white-breasted nuthatches and brown creepers can't glean insects from bark when it's covered with ivy, and periwinkle keeps wildlife from ground-feeding. Johnston said a tree stump at least 10 or 20 feet high can attract woodpeckers and birds who build cavity nests in tree trunks.

Regardless of their proximity to a creek, people need to watch what they pour into a gutter or a driveway, Johnston said, since it ultimately ends up in a local stream.

Johnston, whose early love of Saratoga Creek led to a career in biology, works with the Saratoga Union School District developing creek classes for students in kindergarten through eighth grade. "Learning becomes fun with creek classes," Johnston said. He also hopes students will gain lasting knowledge about environmental stewardship.

SUSD Superintendent Mary Gardner said the creek field trips provide "real life science and build an understanding of the importance of natural resources." The kids are fascinated when they find larvae and bugs or see even the smallest creature, Gardner said. "They get very excited."

Johnston is teaching teachers how to lead creek classes. In 1995 he trained more than 100 Saratoga teachers and school administrators. This summer he'll teach instructors from Santa Clara Unified School District.

"The concept of creek classes is not to load teachers with more work, but to integrate the creek into the regular curriculum," Johnston said.

In the spring of 1998, Johnston plans to have a class raise tree frogs and release them into Saratoga Creek. Eventually, he'd like to do the same with the red-legged frog. Johnston plans to lead trout-rearing and riparian plant restoration classes along the creek.

And, mentioning a contentious issue, he said, "We should do a better job of keeping bacterial contamination out of the creek."

Garth Bacon, special science resource teacher for the Saratoga Union School District, moves from school to school to teach science.

The creek becomes an outdoor laboratory for Bacon's students. "Each grade level has a creek activity," he said. "Third-grade classes incorporate the creek into a unit on ecology. They look at different animals in the creek and the food chain." Fifth-grade classes measure cross-sections of the creek and look for insects and larvae in the mud, on the creek surface and under rocks, Bacon said.

Much of the hands-on work is done at Sanborn Park, where the water is pure. But while sampling the creek water in the city, students must wear rubber gloves and dip their hands in a bucket of water and bleach, Bacon said.

"There's coloform bacteria in the creek, which indicates human or animal pollution going on," he said.

Currently, there's litigation over contamination in Saratoga Creek. The Friends of Santa Clara County Creeks and the San Francisco Baykeeper have filed suit, saying they want more studies done on the origins of the contamination.

The city of Saratoga, named in the suit, has said the dumping of much of the contamination through a storm drain under Saratoga-Sunnyvale Road is not its responsibility. The storm drain is owned by the California Department of Transportation. The city also said bacterial contamination is no worse than in other urban creeks.

Larry Perlin, interim city manager and director of public works for Saratoga, said Saratoga Creek contamination may exceed standards set by federal and state regulatory agencies, but he suggested the standards may be "inappropriate and unattainable."

The original lawsuit was dismissed earlier this year by a federal judge who ruled that the city was not responsible for the storm drain. Plaintiffs, however, say they wanted the dismissal as a way to shorten the litigation process. They're focused on winning the appeal. Asked what the goal of the litigation is, Don Whetstone of the Friends said, "Amazingly little. The Friends and Baykeeper want a genuine effort to find out where pollution is coming from."

The Santa Clara Valley Water District was named in the original suit but settled with the plaintiffs. In the settlement, the district agreed to quarterly monitoring of bacterial levels in the creek and tributary storm drains for three years, a pilot study to locate the sources of bacterial contamination, a review of pollution-discharge response plans and the creation of an oversight committee to monitor compliance with the terms of the settlement. The Coyote Creek Riparian Station was hired in 1995 to carry out monitoring and studies.

Meg Caldwell, chair of the oversight committee and director of environmental and natural resources law at Stanford University, said she'd like more thorough field studies by the city, in particular of sewage lines and septic systems.

Perlin said recent studies have assured city officials that there is no leakage from either system. But Caldwell said there are deficiencies in the studies thus far conducted.

A 1993 study of septic systems near Saratoga Creek concluded there was no evidence of leakage, but also noted that most residents believed to have septic systems were contacted and that heavy vegetation made it difficult to identify seepage in some areas.

Creek classes at schools in Saratoga and Santa Clara were recently bolstered by the acquisition of a computer network for both districts. A Web site for Saratoga Creek is now available, allowing students all along the creek to share data with other schools.

SUSD superintendent Gardner said the network and Web site allow schools to refine the curriculum, to share with others and to explore the political, social and historical dimensions of the creek.

"Saratoga Creek has a rich history," Johnston said. "Saratoga was first primarily a logging town, and the creek supported the trees." Congress Springs Resort, built near the creek in the 19th century, was a tourist destination. The creek provided drinking water and irrigation water for orchards and farms. Johnston pointed out that Highway 9 follows the creek, which provides a natural passageway. The creek also sustains a swath of trees through town. Saratoga's unique four-acre Wildwood Park is located on the creek, and many people enjoy scenic backyards overlooking the creek.

The creek also is an important corridor for wildlife migration, Johnston said. Birds found only near water make their home in Saratoga, including a resident pair of kingfishers and a bird called the water ouzel, or American dipper, which walks under water to catch food.

While what ails Saratoga Creek remains a mystery, the creek is entering a phase of unprecedented monitoring and study. And never before has the city's youngest generation been so well-instructed in the science and stewardship of Saratoga Creek.

To order a copy of the Streamside Planting Guide, call the Coyote Creek Riparian Station, 282-9204, or visit their Website at www.coyotecreek.org. Contributions of technical support or computer equipment are being accepted for the Saratoga Union School District's network. Call Garth Bacon at 867-3424.

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