This is work in progress due to ongoing work. Please bear with rough edges. Older updates, more photos and documents available; email f5creeks@gmail.com.
In six months, the east side of Aquatic Park from north of Dwight to Heinz has been shorn of decades-old bushes and trees as the transcontinental railroad rebuilt long-rusted tracks.
Large industrial buildings again loom just beyond a steep, bare railroad grade, much as in the 1930s when the park was new. Trains again use the rebuilt tracks. With a possible record El Nino of heavy storms approaching, the loose soil and rock of the steep grade could overwhelm wetlands that help purify West Berkeley’s runoff.
Photos from Dwight Way S: Upper left, 1939: A train on the tracks between industries and the steep grade down to a ditch in the new park, flooded by West Berkeley’s shallow aquifer and high groundwater. Upper center and right, April 2026, before clearing: Over decades, vegetation hid industrial buildings and provided habitat for birds and other small animals. Small creeks carried groundwater the to main lagoon. Below, May 2026, during clearing, with trees and brush stacked on the grade. Newer industrial buildings are visible above wetland that helps purify the still-abundant runoff and groundwater.
Quick history: The busy transcontinental tracks, built in the 1870s, sit on the old Bayshore bluff. The park’s lagoons were hastily built in the Great Depression. Because the railroad owned the shoreline, a feeder to the new Bay Bridge — today I-80 — had to be built on fill offshore. Connecting dredged lagoons to the Bay with pipes kept the trapped finger of Bay from becoming a cesspool of raw sewage and pollution. (Much more on park history here.)
Over decades, thick vegetation watered by the strip of wetland encouraged visitors to think of the land as park. But the Union Pacific Railroad’s land extends west of the tracks. Vital buried sewer, water, fuel, and communications pipelines border both sides of the rail line — particularly a buried fuel line on the west.
The railroad takes back its land: The railroad began planning to rebuild a bottleneck underpass at the Port of Oakland by at least 2000. In 2001, the State Department of Fish and Game agreed not to try to impose requirements designed to protect streams and lakes. Two sets of rusted, unused tracks edging relatively undeveloped Aquatic Park, south of the Dreamland for Kids playground, were the most convenient place to reshuffle trains during the multi-year Port of Oakland project.
Emails and plans show that close attention to refurbishing those tracks began by 2020. Multiple notices to Berleley’s Parks and Public Works Departments were missed or ignored, so there was no input from Berkeley. The railroad’s first application for environmental approval, to the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board, included compensation for damage to Aquatic Park’s wetlands — by planting along the tracks in Albany north of Codornices Creek. Regional Board staff pushed successfully to narrow the project, reducing loss of land in Aquatic Park. But in 2024 the railroad submitted a new application for environmental approvals that would, in their words, “avoid all permanent aquatic resource impacts,” thus requiring no costly mitigation for harming the wetlands destined to be stripped. This was approved by state and federal agencies. A portion of the map approved is below. The complete plan is here. The environmental approval is here — 11 MB).
The approved plan, about a third shown above, supposedly maps the strip of wetlands at the foot of the old shoreline bluff. The blue projections shown as not reaching the lagoon in reality continue as creeks. Water moving downhill from West Berkeley passes through the old shoreline bluff in seeps, springs, or pipes, feeding the wetlands that continue as creeks. Only one of four such creeks fis acknowledged in the plan. (It is not on the plan segment above.) Originating in a large broken pipe through the railroad grade, it is supposed to be protected by a large retaining wall.
The approved plan assumes that environmental harms will be only short term. Except at the lone recognized creek, the railroad is required only to plant or seed small plants from a short list, mainly grasses and rushes — no shrubs or trees. After just five years instead of ten as for mitigation, up to half of vegetation may be invasive and another quarter of the area may be bare. There is no requirement to combat serious pest plants, such as giant cane (Arundo donax) that long provided a warren for illicit camps, toilets, and sex. Previously controlled by volunteers, it is already resprouting.
Missed opportunities, no action to correct mistakes: Regional Board staff were startled to discover from a railroad document that their own agency is officially unaware of any water quality problem in the park’s lagoons. The lagoons are not on the Regional Board’s 303d list of impaired waters because a typo conflated them with San Francisco’s Aquatic Park. Thus legally, as far as the state is concerned, Berkeley’s lagoons are pristine. Abundant finding show, and the city’s many studies and grant proposals point out, that the lagoons are unsafe for body contact or fishing, eutrophying, plagued by scummy algae and die-offs, frequently exceed allowable bacteria levels, are losing depth, and lack adequate circulation and water exchange with the Bay. This limits enforcement action aganst anyone, not just the railroad. Nothing was done to correct this. Water Board staff now say that these changes are on a strict five year schedule — with Berkeley’s deadline just passed.
Below: Berkeley missed notices, and the approved plan left in place deep, sometimes dangerous antique tanks and pipes built for vanished heavy industries. These still shoot pollution into the lagoon in winter — see photos below and aquaticpark.org/connections-and-circulation. The one below Heinz, buried under cut trees and brush during clearing, now has a crushed lid, with water far beneath. Other lids have been left unsecured in the past.
Berkeley’s jarring wake-up: Having missed or overlooked notifications, Berkeley knew nothing of this. Disc golfers sounded the alarm in early April 2026, when they saw construction notices and stakes that threatened their popular course. Hasty meetings with park users, advocates, and agencies seem to have led to a partial settlement that may not yet be written. Disc golfers lost space but no holes.
Parks Department plans and management focus. According to the Parks Department, through grants and direct payment, the railroad will give Berkeley’s Parks Department about $200,000 for around 1000 new trees and other plants, mostly natives. Planting is to begin this winter. Long term, this should bring back some wildlife, especially songbirds, and have some effect on runoff.
Parks Department plans are not so far clearly related to what the Water Board or other agencies may want or require. The Parks Department’s plans and policies, generally focused on recreation and low-cost management, may work against wetlands and federal, state, and local requirements to maintain them. In Aquatic Park, the Parks Department has mowed two previous grant-financed restorations of native plants into oblivion, and native wildflowers and grasses seeded as required by the Board were overrun by weeds within two years. The Department’s ordinary maintenance practices work against wetlands.
Above left, area of cattails mowed by Parks Department. The railroad used this photo to show the standard they need to follow. Does this let both railroad and Parks Department continue? Center, chips dumped in wet places at some point become filling wetlands, which is illegal. Right, after a drinking-water line that had been broken for eight months was finally replaced, the creek and a large swath of loose dirt close to the lagoon shore were left bare until the Water Board ordered at least minimal erosion protection.
Do the wetlands matter? The wide flooded ditch at the foot of the railroad grade, shown in the 1930s photo above, developed into wetlands: a varied, sometimes wide bank of cattails and tules, a couple of lovely ponds, dense and often neglected shrubbery, and multiple seeps and springs with small creeks winding to the lagoon. These became habitat for birds and other small animals. As climate change continues, they seem likely to become important in controlling floods and pushing back against intruding salt water that can corrode infrastructure and poison vegetation.
The wetland also do, for free, the work of rain gardens and bioswales, costing millions and required by state permits. That is, they filter, retain, and reduce West Berkeley’s 150 years of legacy industrial pollutants: PCBs, heavy metals, and hydrocarbons from former West Berkeley heavy industry and the railroad tracks themselves.
Above, a small sample of the varied wetlands. Left, native iris-leaved rush, rare in our urban area, flourishes in sun and shade here. It could largely be wiped out in planned replanting. Center, one of the surprisingly deep ponds. Right, wetlands extend deep into the park in some areas. This one, heading a small stream, begins in ithe broad cleared and mowed area at the foot of the steep, bare railroad grade.
The situation in mid-August: The railroad appears to have completed restoring the tracks, expanding the smoothing the grade, and installing new signals. The tracks are in regular use. Clearing is completed. Cut wood was removed by rail and to the east across the tracks.
The railroad did not keep its promise of a barrier between trashed and erodible areas and intact wetlands. The single roll of coir was and is often misplaced or missing. Tree and brush removal trashed seeps and springs that were the origins of several creeks. As of mid-August, loose dirt and rock loom directly over trashed springs and seeps as well as a long, shallow ditch at the foot of the new grade. No more protection against erosion isrequired until October 31. Even then, only a single layer of jute mesh is required in the face of what may be severe storms.
Below: steep bare earth poised to wash into wetlands and headwaters of the small streams that still flow to the main lagoon.
Below: In some ways, the lone creek recognized in the plan may be faring worst of all. The photo left is one of the unrecognized creeks. Though the tall trees and brush in the background are now gone, it is still much the same. The center photo shows the single recognized creek before clearing, its source a pool below the large rocks on the left. Right, after clearing this source appears to be a large broken culvert through the railroad grade — more long-ago infrastructure. A required future wall to “protect” it may have other purposes.
