Spring 1999
Regional Initiative Tackles Toxic Legacy
by Michael Stanley-Jones
When, as legend had it, the earth and sky split open, angry waters rushed out in a torrent, emptying over the barren valley we now call Santa Clara, turning the land green with life. The earliest inhabitants of Santa Clara Basin were the Ohlone Indians, who drew from the waters of the Guadalupe River as a source of fresh water. Later European settlers came to tame and separate these waters from the landscape. The Spaniards, under the guidance of Junipero Serra, built a small mission not far from the Guadalupe River, learning to divert its waters for their rows of corn and wheat. In the late 1830s, San Jose received Pueblo rights to the water flowing through city boundaries. As the Pueblo’s population grew, irrigation intensified. Demand for water led to the first wells being dug into the artesian aquifers running below what is now downtown San Jose. The high pressure of the artesian wells caused the water to flow freely without the need for pumps. For a short period downtown San Jose became a lake. In time, the wells were capped and the flow was controlled. As the settlements spread across the valley, the natural glens populated by willows were drained and built over. The once green landscape know as “the Valley of Hearts’ Delight” began to fade.
Today, the Santa Clara Basin and its watershed — the area its streams and rivers drain, home of 1.7 million people — is divided across three counties and some 20 cities, as well as countless special districts and administrative entities. Stretching from the slopes of the Santa Cruz Mountains above Menlo Park in the west to the Diablo Range drained by Coyote Creek in the east, the Santa Clara Basin presents an incredibly varied face to the world. It encompasses the South San Francisco Bay (south of the Dumbarton Bridge), a unique water body, home to the Harvest Salt Marsh Mouse, Clapper Rail, and Burrowing Owl. The Don Edwards National Wildlife Refuge rings the southeastern shore of the Bay, providing a break in an urban landscape given over to residential, commercial and industrial uses. In the basin’s southern reaches, low-density residential development, scattered agricultural and grazing lands dotted with high-tech research facilities prevail. This is the territory of ‘Silicon Valley’ known throughout the world as the engine of today’s high tech economy.
From its inception, Silicon Valley has suffered from excessive division of responsibility over its development and environmental protection. In the past, specific issues affecting the Valley’s watershed have been addressed by separate regulatory bodies, resulting in an inadequate “patchwork” approach. Few gave thought to the needs of the Basin as a whole.
The list of neglected environmental concerns is long and growing. The waters of the South San Francisco Bay and its upland sources in the Santa Clara Basin are impaired by dioxins, DDT, dieldrin, chlordane, diazinon, copper, nickel, mercury, PCBs and eroded sediments. Residents are warned not to consume fish caught in the Bay, due to mercury contamination. The South Bay has suffered from loss of habitat, biological diversity and species. Biologists fear PCBs endanger the future of the harbor seal colony in Fremont’s Mowry Slough, the San Francisco Bay’s largest home for these magnificent aquatic mammals. We have witnessed unchecked sprawl, shrinkage of open space and scenic vistas, and contamination of the basin’s soils, streams and groundwater resources (see SVTC’s “Hot Spots” maps) .
Regional Initiative Launched
At Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, we recognize that protecting the watershed must be done through coordinated activities on a basin-wide scale. Local jurisdictions must strive to utilize local water resources through an integrated water management approach -- the management of groundwater, surface water, recycled water, and water quality protection in an integrated fashion.
SVTC has joined the Santa Clara Basin Watershed Management Initiative (WMI) — a bold regional forum — to address the most serious challenges affecting the ecology of our watershed. Launched in 1996 by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the San Francisco Regional Water Quality Control Board, the WMI brings together 17 recognized stakeholders committed to protecting and enhancing the watershed’s environment: regulatory agencies and representatives from business and industry, professional and trade organizations, environmental, resource conservation and agricultural groups, and local public agencies.
The Watershed Management Plan will provide the most comprehensive statement to date of what steps need to be taken to ensure the life and ecology of the watershed is sustained. Its legal teeth will make themselves be felt through the incorporation of specific measures written into future regulatory permits to reduce pollution and protect habitat. The Regional Water Quality Control Board will likely incorporate elements of the Watershed Management Plan into future San Francisco Basin Plan amendments — a cardinal regulatory tool for guiding development within the Basin.
Need to Cover All the Contaminants
Since 1972 the Federal Clean Water Act has required communities to redress toxic contamination impairing the beneficial use of the nation’s water bodies. In the South Bay the job of establishing limits on discharges of toxins into the Bay — known as a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) — has barely begun. A South Bay TMDL process for copper and nickel has been underway between wastewater treatment works, environmental, industrial and other community stakeholders since June 1998. A Mercury TMDL is in the works. These TMDLs will be affected by the Watershed Management Plan. The Plan’s choice of measures required for reducing non-point source pollutants’ contribution to the Bay’s toxic contaminant loads will be a critical element in reaching TMDL targets for the lower South Bay. Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition has taken the lead in providing environmental coordination for CLEAN South Bay members within the Copper/Nickel TMDL negotiations. CLEAN South Bay is calling for expansion of the TMDL process to address the entire list of contaminants harming the Bay (see Action Box).
Understandably, point source discharges of pollutants — the publicly owned treatment plants and major Silicon Valley manufacturers among them — are keenly interested in any new requirements developed to meet the Watershed Initiative’s environmental goals. Non-point sources of pollution — those caused by the activities of thousands of area residents and business -- will be equally subject to scrutiny by members of the Initiative. In pursuing a holistic strategy, nothing is off the table; everything is on the watershed.
The Watershed Management Initiative is committed to achieving consensus among stakeholders. At the Toxics Coalition, we are committed to openness in public decision-making. One of the conditions for our participation in WMI is that as the Initiative moves forward, it must remain an open-door process — a process that actively respects and seeks the contribution of all sectors of the community.
We also want to ensure the public has an opportunity to contribute to basin planning and protection. In the past year, SVTC has been a leading advocate of electronic access to pollution data over the Internet. We have also been working to strengthen community monitoring and mapping of local environmental and health conditions. These tools give the public a chance to “upload” information to policy-makers and affect public decisions. SVTC is expanding its award-winning website - www.svtc.org - to strengthen Santa Clara Basin communities’ voice in watershed protection and the creation of a healthier environment.
Local knowledge held by active residents plays a crucial role in reaching sound public decisions. The voices of our communities must be heard lest green turn to gray and dust return to a Valley shorn of the life we failed to sustain.
Michael Stanley-Jones is SVTC Senior Researcher. Carlos Plazola contributed research to this article.
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