Update 11-21-2007

A longish oil-spill update follows, but this email starts with more holiday-oriented matters:

Salmon Walks Begin
Guided walks to see spawning salmon have resumed! Marin's SPAWN (Salmon Protection and Watershed Network) leads tours on Lagunitas and San Geronimo Creeks Saturdays and Sundays, with special tours over the Thanksgiving holidays and Dec. 24 - New Years Day. Register online at http://www.spawnusa.org/ or call 415-663-8590 x107.

Friends of Marsh Creek offer weekly monitoring walks on Marsh Creek in Brentwood. Email Sarah Puckett at spuckett@n-h-i.org or go to http://www.ccrcd.org/marsh.html for information.

Dec. 8 Guadalupe River Trip
On Saturday, Dec. 8, F5C will tour restored Guadalupe River in San Jose, a 3-mile parkway through downtown with gardens that use recycled water, museums, light rail, public art, some colossal flood-control structures and some beautiful natural reaches. Started as a standard flood-control project, this work was halted for several years and redesigned - though perhaps not enough - to protect trout and salmon. Mostly completed in 2004, it now has lost its bare, just-built look. Friends of Guadalupe River Park and Gardens will lead us on a two-hour tour 10:30 am to 12:30 pm. We'll have lunch and then continue on our own. We may throw in a visit to the Peralta adobe - did you know that Luis Maria Peralta, the man to whom the Spanish king gave all of Albany, Berkeley, and Oakland - was the commander at San Jose? The cost is $10 per person (plus lunch and help with gas for the carpool driver). Put it on your calendar - and let me know if you're interested and if you can drive or want a ride.

Thanks and Thanksgiving Thoughts
Thanks for three wonderful work parties this past weekend: More than 45 Head Royce middle-school students at Berkeley's Mortar Rock Park on Friday and about 15 each on upper Codornices Creek paths Saturday and Mortar Rock again (UC Berkeley Circle K) Sunday. What a joy to see native plants going into the ground! And special thanks to Lloyd Andres and Rick Frates for growing so many of the plants.

If you will pardon a high horse for a moment: I hope that we all, as we contemplate all that we have, will think about what each of us can do to lessen the global warming that threatens this well-being - and promises far worse consequences for those not in a position to influence the outcome.

A little less high horse: As the tidal wave of mail rolls in, you may want to consider www.catalogchoice.org, which purports to let you decline unwanted catalogs in future (too late for this year). I can't vouch that this works, but right now am willing to give it a try!

Teens in middle or high school may want to attend Earth Team's Dec. 2 Cool Schools Global Warming Campaign meeting and learn how to make low-carbon gifts and wrapping, 2-4 pm Sun., Dec. 2 at Berkeley High School College & Career Center, 1980 Allston Way at Milvia (1 block from Berkeley BART). RSVP by Wed., Nov. 28 to (510)704-4030 or chicory@earthteam.net.

Oil Spill Update, What You Can Do
Thanks for putting up with my many emails during the first, confused days of the spill, and thanks to all who helped. Here is a status summary and some ideas on what you can do now:

Effects: Of the 58,000-gallon spill, about 16,000 gallons, including 1000 cubic yards of oily solids, have been collected. An estimated 4,000 gallons have evaporated. The remaining oil has mostly coalesced into floating tarballs that pick up sand and seaweed. They will continue to wash ashore and float up when the tide reaches them again. These tarry masses are not likely to sink deeply into the Bay mud.

After the late November extreme tides, we will know more about damage to subtidal life - shellfish, fish, eelgrass, seaweed. So far, effects don't appear dire. There also are no confirmed deaths of mammals due to oil, but then there were no attempts to capture sick ones. The vital bird habitat in the marshes and mudflats north of the Albany Bulb fared relatively well. A high-quality boom was stretched from the Bulb to Pt. Isabel Friday, before oil reached the area, so the Albany Mudflats remained clean, and booms kept most, but not all, oil out of Hoffmann and Stege Marshes north of Pt. Isabel. (See our slide show at www.fivecreeks.org.) These booms have now been removed, making monitoring worthwhile -- see below.

In very round numbers, about 1000 birds have been found dead and the same number rescued alive. We don't yet know the survival rate of the rescued birds. Fewer heavily oiled birds are being found. Rescue of lightly oiled birds is virtually impossible, but they continue to come ashore to warm up and try to recover. The trailer where birds were "stabilized" before transportation to the bird hospital at Fairfield is currently scheduled to be removed next week, and the only number for reporting oiled birds is 415 701-2311 (San Francisco's 311 system).

Cleanup: Cleanup is being done in phases: Removal of oil that is easily seen and removed, finer-scale removal, and then supposedly a collaborative decision by local and other authorities that cleanup is complete. Where you see reports of "100% cleanup" for some beaches, that is likely to mean the first phase - some beaches may stay closed, and there is not yet a threat that areas will be declared clean prematurely. At least in theory, the owners of the container ship are responsible for all damages and clean-up costs. The costs to taxpayers should be zero.

Right now, beaches of San Francisco and Marin, which got more oil than the East Bay, have been more thoroughly cleaned. Angel Island and Brooks Island remain among the most fouled areas and remain closed. Albany and Berkeley have hired professionals doing cleanup; neither is seeking volunteers. Richmond, with its much longer shoreline, is a more complicated situation; I can't generalize.

Access and helping: The Bay Trail and shoreline trails are generally open, access to the water is barred and some trails may be closed intermittently for bird rescue or cleanup. Please be patient. Fishing is banned at least until Dec. 1, and boats cannot leave most marinas, including Berkeley.

The best thing you may be able to do this weekend is to stay away from the waterfront so that birds can recover and cleanup can proceed. Take a salmon- spawning tour, for example, or walk around Aquatic Park or Lake Merritt. Especially stay off delicate intertidal areas exposed during the daytime low tides Wednesday, Thursday, or late Friday afternoons.

If you do go, take binoculars and/or a camera with a long lens if you have them, and document oil effects, especially in rocks and rip-rap. Send photos, description, and location to volunteer@baykeeper.org (Baykeeper) or photos@savesfbay.org (Save the Bay). Both also want photos from the first week of the spill.

Marin will offer clean-up training Saturday morning, Nov. 24, and clean-ups Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 24-25 and Dec. 1-2. Those with proof of completed training in San Francisco or Berkeley trainings may help with the cleanups. Contact 415-499-7191 or e-mail pthomas@co.marin.ca.us to register.

Two editorial comments:
Re individuals: Here is what I think I learned about emergencies: First, get all the training you can. Second, when the emergency comes, take initiative and use common sense plus skepticism re authorities. The "heroes" of this spill, in my perception, were those who used skills and training they already had, didn't wait for whoever was supposed to lead, and worked either just outside of or barely within the system to get things done.

Re agencies, etc.: This spill exposed weaknesses in our response to oil spills at every level. Some I observed were lack of a prioritized system to boom off sensitive habitat, gridlock in the phone system for reporting oiled birds, failure to deal intelligently with people's desires to help, and big differences in the responses of local city and county governments. We need to plan how to do better next time. To do that, I think we need to create a situation in which the goal is not to place blame, and in which agencies do not feel they must defend their performance or claim credit. I don't know how to do that, but think it's important.

Have a great Thanksgiving! And appeal for donations...
Those on our mailing list should be receiving our annual newsletter with an appeal for funds. But we don't have snail-mail addresses for many of you. Please consider making a tax-deductible donation. Even though we are an all-volunteer organization that operates on a shoestring, we do have expenses, for example for plants, tools, and materials. Information is at www.fivecreeks.org. Susan Schwartz