Students from nearby Black Pine Circle day school — 120 of them, from kindergarten to eighth grade 11 — volunteered around the lagoons on the school’s April 19 Pace Seeds of Change service day. Groups helped at Waterside Workshops and Bay Area Outreach and Recreation Program (BORP), picked up trash with Shark Stewards and park staff, and weeded and pruned in the hummingird and butterfly garden next to Dreamland for Kids playground with Friends of Five Creeks (left, handing the big bags of weeds over the fence for pickup).
Big changes for the Dreamland for Kids area? With $300,000 from the city’s General Fund, the Parks Department plans to design a replacement for the Dreamland for Kids playground, north of where Channing would be if it crossed the tracks. The big wooden play structure — largest in the city — was among collaborations throughout the nation between landscape architect Robert Leathers and local volunteers. Aquatic Park’s effort was spearheaded by Berkeley Partners for Parks, who chose placement and details and, along with Parks staff, organized hundreds of volunteers of all ages to do much of the construction.
The popular playground shows its 20+ years and does not meet modern accessibility standards. Parks Director Scott Ferris says that the city is working with staff and on-call landscape architects, with public input perhaps six to eight months off. A new playground would have to mesh with other changes: A new grant to reduce runoff pollution promises a 10,000-square-foot rain garden or “bioswale” in the present parking area (scroll down for more info).
The three acres just north of the parking lot, also bordered by Bolivar Drive, Bancroft, and the railroad tracks, may be redeveloped as laboratories similar to those still under construction just to the north. Woodstock Development of Burlingame has approached the city about replacing the 50-year-old, one story buildings dating from the 1970s. This would require planning forpedestrians, cyclists, and cars on the narrow strip between the property and the lagoon; emergency access and evacuation; the planned large bioswale, and future rising groundwater and possible flooding.
Early algae in the Model Yacht Basin/Middle lagoon: By early April, the Model Yacht Basin/middle lagoon had extensive growth of slimy filamentous algae, both floating and submerged (below). This is extraordinarily early, and may be a sign of eutrophication that would speed the ongoing filling of this lagoon. The surface algae disappeared following the heavy nighttime rain of April 13. If you remember previous blooms like this in the Model Yacht Basin, please email f5creeks@gmail.com with any information, including if possible years and seasons.
Volunteers help plant new forest on west side of Aquatic Park: The little-used west shore of the main lagoon, polluted by freeway noise, has a new forest intended to lessen noise and draw people and birds. The area has about 1,200 new plants, plus an irrigation system to help with maintenance. According to Ian Kesterson, city forester, about 300 trees will get quite large if they survive; about 300-400 would be small trees or large shrubs at maturity, and others are smaller shrubs or groundcovers.
In January, contractors planted 100 trees edging the freeway (left) and installed irrigation to keep the new plants alive (center). At volunteer events Feb. 3, Mar. 9, and Apr. 6, hundreds helped with planting and mulching. Costs, more than $300,000, came from a CalTrans/state Natural Areas grant to mitigate freeway impacts, the Bayer Fund, and about a sixth from the Berkeley Parks Tax.
Tile mural planned: In October, the Civic Arts Commission chose Masako Miki’s proposed tile mural, with elements from Ohlone and Japanese folklore, for a $700,000 project to beautify what is now a plain concrete wall between the north end of the Aquatic Park main lagoon and the city’s animal shelter. All proposals for a larger art project along the main lagoon were rejected; the Commission plans to write a new description and seek new proposals.
Grant for urban-runoff treatment for Bancroft-Channing approved: The US Environmental Protection Agency has approved a $1.5 million grant to pay half the cost of $3 million in improvements to treatment of urban runoff from near the west ends of Channing and Bancroft to Aquatic Park, a small part of polluted discharges to the lagoons from the city.
The project is expected to include a 10,000 square foot “rain garden” in the present parking lot next to Dreamland for Kids playground and centrifugal trash separators at Channing and Bancroft east of the railroad. These could also be designed to reduce inflows of smaller particles. The grant proposal is here. The work would lessen pollution from two “microwatersheds” that drain small areas in West Berkeley directly to the main lagoon – a small fraction of the polluted urban runoff to Aquatic Park’s lagoons. An overall view of circulation and urban runoff in the Aquatic Park lagoons is here.