Photograph by Robert Scheer
Meg Caldwell, program director of environmental and natural resources law at Stanford, is not sure of the upstream source of Saratoga Creek's bacteria.
By Julie Mehta
More education is needed about possibly harmful organisms in the Saratoga Creek, say some members of the Urban Creek Assessment Project Oversight Committee, which recently publicized bacteriologial test results on the creek.
Meanwhile, City Manager Harry Peacock maintained that "as far as the city is concerned, there is not a problem."
Eighty-four of the 93 test samples taken from November 1995 to February 1996 fail to pass the federal Environmental Protection Agency's enterococci criteria for recreational water contact, the committee announced. Eleven of these samples exceeded100 times the EPA criteria.
More than half the samples failed to pass EPA water-contact criteria for total coliform and/or fecal coliform.
"It is imperative people who are working in the creek not sit on the data and prevent people from taking precautions to avoid disease," said former planning commissioner Meg Caldwell, who heads the committee.
Enterococci, a subgroup of fecal streptococci, and total and fecal coliform are indicators of the possibility of sewage in the water, said environmental engineer Carol Presley of the Santa Clara Valley Water District. All these organisms are found in the bodies of mammals, and all can be harmful in some circumstances, Presley said.
The assessment began last fall through the settlement of a lawsuit brought by Friends of Santa Clara County Creeks and San Francisco Baykeeper against the water district. Litigation against the city is still pending.
The project, which will cost the district between $80,000 and $120,000, is a three-year program of testing of Saratoga Creek and its tributary storm drains to characterize the level of contamination existing in the creek.
Presley said it is the only test of its kind being conducted in an urban creek in California. Test samples are collected quarterly at locations stretching from Sanborn Road to Prospect Road. The samples are collected by California Soil and Environmental Consultants and analyzed by Sequoia Analytical Lab. A seven-member oversight committee includes five people appointed by the water district and two by the plaintiffs.
Whetstone said he believes the district has done an excellent job with the testing. But his judgment of the city is not so kind.
"I think they're paying lip service but not really investigating illegal discharges," he said.
He says he believes creek contaminants are coming from storm drains, septic tanks, and breaches in the sewer system. The city makes a quarterly report to the California Regional Water Quality Control Board on the discharge incidents in the creek area. The most recent report, for the first quarter of the year, lists seven incidents of discharged substances, ranging from garbage to antifreeze to tallow.
Peacock said the city does its own creek testing for coliform bacteria through the West Valley College biology department. He says the standards the assessment project committee is using apply to lakes and that there are no offical standards specifically set for urban creeks.
Presley said creek pollution is likely not limited to Saratoga and that even pristine-appearing mountain streams should be regarded warily.
"To me, a lot of this is common sense," Presley said. "You would not want to drink out an urban creek."
This article appeared in the Saratoga News, July 3, 1996.
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