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COALITION BUILDING 



Restoring Urban Waterways 



by Michael C. Houck 



While (ho primary locus ol this fall's American Rivers' 

 conference. Tlie Finnic iif Americu's Rivers, was 10 

 celebrate the 25lh anniversary of Ihc National Wild and 

 Scenic Rivers Act. speaker after speaker, from Jim Lyons, Assis- 

 tant Secretary for Natural Resources and (Environment of the 

 USDA. to Department of Interior's Bureau of Reclamation's 

 chief Dan Beard and Congressman George Miller (D-CA). 

 waxed poetic about childhood memories from an urban river or 

 stream. Even acior Michael Kcaton. the gala banquet's master of 

 ceremonies, commented on his youth on an urban stream. 



Although only one conference workshop wax devoted spe- 

 cifically to urban river restoration, the future of river restora- 

 tion, at least in part, seems to lie in reluming to our collective 

 and individual past — to rivers and streams where most of us 

 caught our first trout, dipped for polli wogs and bagged our first 

 dragonfly. Given that more than 80 percent of us live in cities, 

 it is not surprising that many advocates of river protection got 

 their start on the ditch behind their school or the storm drain in 

 back of the neighborhood supermarket. 



At the conference, activists called repeatedly for the crea- 

 tion of a "parade" for national river protection. One way to 

 produce a more powerful movement might be to put more 

 resources into solving stream and river problems where the 

 people are.fn the nation's urban centers. 



Why an Urban Waterway Agenda? 



Many ofour states and most cities are financially strapped. 

 Nonprofit organizations fight over limited funding and all 

 agencies, at all levels of government,. lack staff. Why put 

 resources into degraded urban watersheds? With our limited 

 resources, would money not be better spent salvaging the 

 few remaining pristine rural ecosystems? Why should we 

 spend money on ecological restoration when the essentials 

 of social services, police and fire protection, education, and 

 decaying urban infrastructure are in such need of funds? 



There are innumerable reason's that urban watersheds are 

 worthy of protection in their own right. Two authors suc- 

 cinctly and passionately offer socioeconomic, ecological, 

 and philosophical rationales for the protection and restora- 

 tion of urban waterways. Charles Little's Greenways for 

 America uses case studies to document the importance of 

 urban streams and rivers, and other greenways, for the 

 maintenance, renewal, and connectors of communities. Lit- 

 tle argues that greenways should be incorporated into the 

 urban fabric as an alternative infrastructure, receiving the 

 same status as roads, sewers, and utilities. Urban streams are 

 critical to maintaining the quality of life in our cities. They 

 provide fish and wildlife habitat and open space where they 

 are needed most: where the people live. They offer unparal- 

 leled recreational opportunities; provide effective open 

 space; add to adjacent property values; and provide a natural, 

 low-cost alternative for filtering polluted stormwater runoff. 



Michael C. Houck is Director of the Urban Streams Council, a 

 program of The Wetlands Conservancy, a nonprofit landtrust in 

 Tualatin, Oregon. He also is the Urban Naturalist for the Audubon 

 Society of Portland. 



Robe-it Michael Pylc. in his book The Thunder Tree, de- 

 scribes the many philosophical reasons to protect and restore 

 urban waterways Chief among these is his fear that urban 

 populations, especially children, will sulfcr an "extinction of 

 experience." which is no less troubling than the extinction of 

 Mora and fauna. He illustrates through his own excursions on 

 Denver's Highline Canal, that city kids can experience nature 

 nearby. Pylc feels that if we lose touch with nature as youngsters 

 we cease to care. Since most ol us have access only to (he urban 

 ditches and streams that are typically tulvcncd. channeli/ed 

 and cemented over, one ofour most pressing challenges is to 

 protect and restore these areas. 



There are other reasons why urban waterways should not 

 be written off. Most urban stream groups are grounded in the 

 social equity issues associated with urban waterway restora- 

 tion. Unlike many mainstream environmental causes, social 

 and environmental justice issues are often integral to urban 

 stream restoration. Urban stream restoration efforts in inner 

 city areas are as much about the restoration of community, 

 including reviving the local economy and creating jobs, as 

 about ecological restoration. 



Developing a National Urban Waterway Coalition 



The epicenter of urban stream restoration and grassroots 

 activism has been in Oakland. Berkeley, and north Rich- 

 mond. California. The guru of the urban stream resloration- 

 ists is Ann Riley, co-founder of California's Urban Creeks 

 Council, a statewide urban stream network dedicated to the 

 protection, daylighting (liberating culverted, buried streams 

 and bringing them above ground), and rehabilitation of 

 urban waters. 



No urban waterway project better exemplifies the urban 

 stream movement than Wildcat Creek, which originates in 

 the Berkeley hills and flows through one of the region's 

 poorest and most toxic-ridden communities, north Rich- 

 mond. Wildcat Creek restoration began when the U.S. Army 

 Corps of Engineers proposed a sterile flood control chan- 

 nelization project for the creek bed. 



Fortunately, a coalition of north Richmond activists, the 

 Urban Creeks Council, and a local consulting firm, Phil Wil- 

 liams Associates, formed an alliance with moxie, technical 

 knowhow, and community organizing abilities to develop an 

 alternative flood control and restoration design. This design 

 was multi-objective in nature — combining low flow and high 

 flow channels with riparian vegetation, a recreational trail, and 

 non-structural elements. The citizen's design was eventually 

 adopted and now adoms a new Corps' flood control manual. 



In addition to being one of the nation's best known stream 

 restorat ion i sts, a bre wmistress. and co-founder of Berkeley's 

 Yeast Bay Brewery, Ann Riley has a passion for sharing 

 information and promoting "user friendly" small watershed 

 grants programs for community-based urban stream restora- 

 tionists. As with many good ideas, the blueprint for a na- 

 tional coalition of grassroots urban stream restorationists 

 was outlined on a napkin in a Berkeley Thai restaurant. After 

 discussions with grassroots organizations and national con- 



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NATIONAL WETLANDS NEWSLETTER 



