San Bruno Mountain
San Bruno Mountain is located in northern San Mateo County, with some slopes of the mountain crossing over into southern San Francisco. Most of the lies within the 2, 326-acre San Bruno Mountain State Park. Next to the park is the 83-acre state San Bruno Mountain Ecological Reserve on the north slope. It is near the boundary of San Francisco, surrounded by the cities of South San Francisco, Daly City, Colma. San Bruno Mountain is topped by a four mile long ridge, trails to the summit afford expansive views of the San Francisco Bay Area. The mountain provides habitat for species of rare and endangered plants. The endangered San Bruno elfin butterfly inhabits this mountain and a few other locations, the distinct Franciscan fog zone plants of San Bruno Mountain set it apart from other California coastal areas. The Portola expedition visited San Francisco Bay in 1769, the expedition is usually considered the first European presence in the area. Five years Fernando Rivera and four soldiers climbed the mountain, the mountain was named by Bruno de Heceta for his patron saint.
San Bruno Mountain consists of portions of five Mexican land grants, jose Antonio Sanchez, who rode by mule as a child from Sonora, Mexico was given Rancho Buri Buri in 1827, with confirmation in 1835. Rancho Buri Buri extended from the bay salt flats to San Andreas Valley, in 1835 this rancho was granted to Jacob P. Leese. Three other ranchos held minor portions of the flank of San Bruno Mountain. The cities that have grown up around the mountain are San Francisco to the north, Brisbane to the east, thornton pioneered the Habitat Conservation Plan concept creating the first such plan for the area around San Bruno Mountain. KRON was the first television station to place a transmitter tower on Radio Peak, in 1949, followed by KQED and KTVU, though these tenants moved their transmitters to Sutro Tower in the 1970s. A number of FM stations built transmitter towers on the mountain, KTSF occupies the former KRON site. In 1965, Westbay Community Associates announced a plan to level a portion of the mountain to fill 27 square miles of San Francisco Bay north of Sierra Point with landfill.
The proposal intended to create housing developments in the Saddle just north of Guadalupe Canyon Road, the Terra Bay project was approved in the mid-1980s for development at the south and southeast base of San Bruno Mountain. Dean & Associates, was unable to complete the project, and SunChase Holdings acquired the project in 1992, SunChase agreed to fund ecological restoration to mitigate the impact of Terra Bay during the development of Phase I under the terms of the San Bruno HCP
Permanente Creek
Permanente Creek is a 13. 3-mile-long stream originating on Black Mountain in Santa Clara County, United States. It is the namesake for the Kaiser Permanente health maintenance organization, the Ohlone Indians lived in the area for over 3,000 years prior to the arrival of the Europeans. A large village, known as Partacsi, was located in general area. An expedition led by Colonel Juan Bautista de Anza passed through this area in March 1776 as he forged the first overland route from Monterey to San Francisco Bay. Mission Santa Clara de Asis was founded in October of the same year, governor Alvarado granted Rancho San Antonio de Padua to Juan Prado Mesa in 1839. This 440-acre rancho was bounded by Adobe Creek to the north and Stevens Creek to the south, on a diseño of Rancho San Antonio in 1839 Permanente Creek is shown as Arroyo Permanente. Mesa had been a soldier at the Presidio of San Francisco since 1828, served as a corporal in the Santa Clara Guard, Permanente Creek is the namesake for Kaiser Permanente.
Bess Kaiser and her spouse, industrialist Henry J and that medical program became Kaiser Permanente. Permanente Creek consists of approximately 13.3 miles of channel draining an area of 17.5 square miles. It has two tributaries, the West Fork Permanente Creek and Hale Creek. West Fork Permanente Creek and its Wildcat Canyon tributary were formerly known as Ohlone Creek, the perennial reaches of these creeks share the same perennial nature as a similar reach on nearby Adobe Creek. Here the creek enters a concrete trapezoidal channel constructed by the Santa Clara Valley Water District, only during high floods can a portion of the creeks waters surmount the floodgate and return to the original channel. Therefore, the Diversion Channel effectively reconnects Permanente Creek to the Stevens Creek watershed and this recapitulates the 1862 Allardt Map of the San Francisco & San Jose Railroad which shows Permanente Creek as a tributary of Stevens Creek. This is significant ecologically, because Stevens Creek still hosts an anadromous steelhead trout run.
The Diversion Channel essentially changes the length of Permanente Creek from 13.3 miles to San Francisco Bay to 9.3 miles ending at its junction with Stevens Creek just past Highway 85. However, Hale Creek still flows to the lower reaches of Permanente Creek. This lowest part of the creek historically disappeared into the marshland before reaching the Bay, the creek must have been hydrologically connected to the Bay at times of high winter flows since Steelhead trout were able to access Permanente Creek historically. Saltwater is pumped from Charleston Slough into Shoreline Lake and from there it flows to Permanente Creek, the Mountain View Slough carries flows to the Bay between former salt ponds A1 and A2W
Guadalupe River (California)
The Guadalupe River mainstem is an urban, northward flowing 14 miles river in California whose much longer headwater creeks originate in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The river mainstem now begins on the Santa Clara Valley floor when Los Alamitos Creek exits Lake Almaden and joins Guadalupe Creek just downstream of Coleman Road in San Jose, from here it flows north through San José, California where it receives Los Gatos Creek, a major tributary. The Guadalupe River is the southernmost major U. S. river with a Chinook salmon run, much of the river is surrounded by parks. Two of the Guadalupe Rivers major tributaries, Los Gatos Creek, Juan Bautista de Anza camped along the banks of the Guadalupe River at Expedition Camp 97 on March 30,1776 near the present–day site of Agnews State Hospital. Both had to be moved away from the river because of mosquitoes in the summertime, today Santa Clara Mission is 2 miles away from the original location. Historically the Guadalupe River was even shorter, originating several miles further north and its main tributary was known as Arroyo Seco de Guadalupe on 1860 maps and as Arroyo Seco de Los Capitancillos on the 1876 Thompson & West maps.
On July 9,2005, the bones of a juvenile Columbian mammoth were discovered in the Lower Guadalupe River near the Trimble Road overcrossing. The discovery was made by San Jose resident, founder of the Salmon and Steelhead Restoration Group, the Pleistocene mammoth was nicknamed Lupe by area residents and Lupes fossils are exhibited at Childrens Discovery Museum of San Jose. Historically, the Guadalupe River flowed into Guadalupe Slough,1.0 mile west of its current drainage into Alviso Slough. To make it easier to get sailboats up the Guadalupe River to the port of Alviso, Alviso Slough, known as Steamboat Slough historically, was relatively straight, while Guadalupe Slough meandered extensively through the marshes. Alviso Slough was historically not fed by any upland streams, but simply carried tidewater in, the re-routing of the river to Alviso Slough in the 1870s disconnected it from several tributaries, and had the effect of shrinking the Guadalupe River Watershed. San Tomas Aquino Creek and its Saratoga Creek tributary and Calabazas Creek and these tributaries were disconnected from the river and re-routed directly into Guadalupe Slough between 1876 and 1890 according to historic maps.
Reportedly, Saratoga Creek had steelhead and coho salmon runs and they now go dry in the summer months and their lower segments have become denuded ditches requiring continuous maintenance. Mission Creek used to harbor trout and salmon but today it is buried in a culvert, the historic watershed can be viewed in the Thompson and West 1876 maps. The Guadalupe Watershed today drains an area of 171 square miles, below its origination at the confluence of Guadalupe Creek and Los Alamitos Creek, the mainstem is joined by three other tributaries, Ross and Los Gatos Creeks. The SCVWD manages water flows and provides flood control on the river, the construction of salt evaporation ponds in the 1930s rerouted the Guadalupe River, cutting off tidal action. The current project will open a former Cargill Salt pond as the beginning of the South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project, when complete, the project should restore 15,100 acres of industrial salt ponds to tidal wetlands. Pond A8 will be the first one worked on, early written documents record the local presence of migrating salmon in the ‘Rio Guadalupe’ dating as far back as the 18th century
Loma Prieta
Loma Prieta is a 3,790 feet Northern California mountain in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The peak is on private property about 11 miles west of Morgan Hill in Santa Clara County, the dirt road to the summit is gated, but the tower maintainers generally do not mind hikers. A rural area south and east of the summit is referred to as Casa Loma. The name is unofficial, but its use is supported by the existence of a Casa Loma Volunteer Fire Department in the area, Loma Chiquita Road serves this general area near the Santa Cruz County line. From 1976 through 1990 amateur astronomer Donald Machholz set up his telescope an average of 120 times a year on the slope of this mountain to search for comets. From this site he discovered three new comets that bear his name, including Periodic Comet Machholz 1 96P/Machholz on May 12,1986, the first official West Coast Messier marathon was conducted from this site in March 1979. The epicenter of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake was near the mountain, the mountain was the longtime site for the transmitter tower of San Jose television station KNTV.
It moved its transmitter 83 kilometres northwest to San Bruno Mountain in September 2005, Loma Prieta is the tallest peak in the Santa Cruz Mountains and thus it is common to see snow on the mountain during the winter. List of summits of the San Francisco Bay Area Loma Prieta
Adobe Creek (Santa Clara County, California)
Adobe Creek is a 14. 2-mile-long northward-flowing stream originating on Black Mountain in Santa Clara County, United States. It courses through the cities of Los Altos Hills, Los Altos, Adobe Creek was perennial and hosted runs of steelhead trout entering from southwestern San Francisco Bay. The Ohlone people were the inhabitants of Adobe Creek. A large shell mound which once had a group of Indian huts was found near Adobe Creek in Palo Alto, the site had other artifacts, and an archeological dig was mounted by Foothill College. Around this same time, an Ohlone basket was discovered buried in the Creek bank further north, the OKeefe site has a historical plaque marking the historic site. On the 1862 Allardt Map the upper creek is called Arroyo San Antonio, Yeguas is Spanish for mare, and the Mission Santa Clara named it that because they built a corral for mares along the creeks banks near the Bay. Juan Prado Mesa renamed it San Antonio Creek when he was granted Rancho San Antonio in 1839 by Governor Juan Bautista Alvarado, the Adobe Creek name appears as early as 1855 on an official surveyor’s map, which lists both the Adobe and San Antonio names for the creek.
During the secularization of the missions in the 1830s, Alvarado parceled out much of their land to prominent Californios via land grants, Mesa was a soldier stationed at the Presidio of San Francisco who had become alfarez in 1837. He built a large adobe, which lasted well into the twentieth century as a crumbling ruin long thought of as a fortification. The site today is on a hill on the southeast side of El Monte Avenue near Summerhill Avenue in Los Altos, most of which is located on the territory of the Rancho. The upper creek originates in the historic Rancho La Purisima Concepcion, which was granted by Governor Alvarado in 1840 to Jose Gorgonio, Gorgonio moved to the west bank of Adobe Creek near Fremont Avenue in Los Altos Hills. Much of the town of Los Altos Hills, California was located on this Rancho, in 1844 Rancho La Purisima Concepcion was sold to Juana Briones de Miranda, whose family members had accompanied both the Gaspar de Portolà and the Juan Bautista de Anza Expeditions.
Designated a California State Historical Landmark in 1954, the 160-year-old Juana Briones home was scheduled for demolition in 2007 because of damage to it by the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989, in 2009, it still stands and has been recently documented with a Historic American Buildings Survey. After 1831, Mexican rancho owners would logically erect their dwellings on or very near creeks, Juan Prado’s adobe was near Adobe Creek & Juanita Briones’ adobe was near Barron Creek. Because they were permanent features of the landscape, creeks were often used as Rancho boundaries and this was true locally, where the Mexican diseño show Adobe Creek as the boundary between Rancho San Antonio and Rancho La Purisima Concepcion. When Americans took over in 1850, speculators bought much of this land, much of it initially became large self-contained ranches---typically running cattle & growing crops like wheat, barley & oats that required little or no irrigation. That changed in a few decades when it was discovered that orchards and vineyards could thrive here, such agriculture of course used more water.
Local land was cut progressively into smaller holdings, until most of it was subdivided as the population increased and this meant more and more wells, including large ones dug along Adobe Creek by early water companies to serve the little town of Los Altos
Secondary forest
A secondary forest is a forest or woodland area which has re-grown after a timber harvest, until a long enough period has passed so that the effects of the disturbance are no longer evident. However, often after natural disturbance the timber is harvested and removed from the system, depending on the forest, the development of primary characteristics may take anywhere from a century to several millennia. Hardwood forests of the eastern United States, for example, can develop primary characteristics in one or two generations of trees, or 150–500 years. Often the disruption is the result of activity, such as logging. Secondary forests tend to have trees closer spaced than primary forests, Secondary forests typically were thought to lack biodiversity compared to primary forests, however this has been challenged in recent years. Usually, secondary forests have only one layer, whereas primary forests have several. Secondary forestation is common in areas where forests have been lost by the slash-and-burn method, Secondary forests re-establish by the process of succession.
Openings created in the forest canopy allow sunlight to reach the forest floor, an area that has been cleared will first be colonized by pioneer species. Even though some species loss may occur with primary forest removal, Secondary forests may buffer edge effects around mature forest fragments and increase connectivity between them. They may be a source of wood and other forest products, today most of the forest of the United States, the eastern part of North America and Europe consist of secondary forest. In the case of tropical rainforests, where soil nutrient levels are characteristically low, in Panama, growth of new forests from abandoned farmland exceeded loss of primary rainforest in 1990. However, due to the quality of soil, among other factors. Land use, land-use change and forestry Land use CIFOR Secondary Forest FAO Forestry World Resource Institute M. van Breugel,2007, U Sezen,2007, Parentage analysis of a regenerating palm tree in a tropical second-growth forest. Ecological Society of America, Ecology 88, 3065-3075
The Nature Conservancy
The Nature Conservancy is a charitable environmental organization, headquartered in Arlington, United States. Its mission is to conserve the lands and waters on all life depends. The Conservancys work focuses on the priorities of Lands, Climate, Oceans. Founded in Arlington, Virginia, in 1951, The Nature Conservancy now impacts conservation in 69 countries, the Conservancy has over one million members, and has protected more than 119,000,000 acres of land and thousands of miles of rivers worldwide. The Nature Conservancy operates more than 100 marine conservation projects globally, the organizations assets total $6.71 billion as of 2015. The Nature Conservancy is the largest environmental nonprofit by assets and by revenue in the Americas, the Nature Conservancy rates as one of the most trusted national organizations in Harris Interactive polls every year since 2005. Forbes magazine rated The Nature Conservancys fundraising efficiency at 88 percent in its 2005 survey of the largest U. S. charities, the Nature Conservancy is led by President and CEO Mark Tercek, a former managing director at Goldman Sachs.
He is the author of the Washington Post and Publisher’s Weekly bestselling book Nature’s Fortune, How Business, the Nature Conservancys Chief Scientist is Australian Hugh Possingham, who was named to this position in 2016. The current board chairman is Craig McCaw, the Chairman & CEO of Eagle River Inc, other current members include former U. S. Senator Bill Frist, chairman of the Alibaba Group Jack Ma, the Nature Conservancy developed out of an older organization known as the Ecological Society of America. The latter society was founded in 1915 and two formed a Committee on Preservation of Natural Areas for Ecological Study, headed by Victor Shelford. The divide in viewpoints led the society to dissolve the committee, the latter group eventually took the name The Nature Conservancy, in emulation of the British agency of that name, which pursued a mission of conserving open space and wildlife preserves. The Nature Conservancy was incorporated in the United States as an organization on October 22,1951.
The Nature Conservancy takes an approach to conservation, setting goals that describe the results it wants to achieve for biodiversity. The Nature Conservancy sets both long-term and near-term goals for conserving the abundance and geographic distribution of species and ecological systems. The organizations overall goal is to ensure the survival of all biodiversity on Earth. The Nature Conservancy works with all sectors of society including businesses, communities, partner organizations, the Nature Conservancy has pioneered new land preservation techniques such as the conservation easement and debt for nature swaps. A conservation easement is a way for owners to ensure that their land remains in its natural state while capitalizing on some of the lands potential development value
Stevens Creek (California)
Stevens Creek is a creek in Santa Clara County, California. The creek originates in the Santa Cruz Mountains on the flank of Black Mountain in the Monte Bello Open Space Preserve near the terminus of Page Mill Road at Skyline Blvd. It flows southeasterly through the Stevens Creek County Park before turning northeast into Stevens Creek Reservoir. It continues north for 12.5 miles through Cupertino, Los Altos and Mountain View before emptying into the San Francisco Bay at the Whisman Slough, near Googles main campus. The creek was originally named Arroyo San José de Cupertino by Spanish explorer Juan Bautista de Anza, de Anza completed the first overland route to San Francisco Bay when he and Father Pedro Font sighted the bay from a prominent knoll near the entry of Rancho San Antonio County Park. In de Anzas diary on March 25,1776, he states that he arrived at the Arroyo San José de Cupertino, here we halted for the night, having come eight leagues in seven and a half hours. From this place we have seen at our right the estuary which runs from the port of San Francisco, the Diocese of San Jose recently dedicated de Anzas Knoll as permanent public open space.
The Saint Joseph of Cupertino place name is preserved today in the city of Cupertino to the east, stephens renamed his 160-acre property at the base of Black Mountain Blackberry Farm. Stephens is notable for being the captain of the Stephens-Townsend-Murphy Party and it drains a watershed of about 29 square miles. There is one major impoundment, Stevens Creek Reservoir at 531 feet of elevation, the reservoir was constructed in 1935 to provide storage capacity of winter runoff that could be used to recharge the Santa Clara valley aquifer. The reservoir is managed by the Santa Clara Valley Water District and has a current capacity of 3,465 acre feet of water, tributaries above the Stevens Creek Reservoir include Indian Creek, Bay Creek, Gold Mine Creek, Swiss Creek and Montebello Creek. One tributary, Heney Creek, joins the mainstem 3.7 miles below the Reservoir, additionally, a diversion channel from Permanente Creek sends winter storm flows into Stevens Creek approximately 6.3 miles below the reservoir.
The Stevens Creek Trail is a 5-mile long bicycle and pedestrian path that runs continuously from Shoreline Park to Heatherstone Way in Mountain View. Cupertino has completed an approximately 1-mile section of trail runs north along the creek from McClellan Road to Stevens Creek Blvd. Passing the 4-H farm and community gardens in McClellan Ranch Park nature preserve, the trail is entirely separated from vehicular traffic, using numerous overcrossings and underpasses. The four cities of Sunnyvale, Los Altos, Stevens Creek was one of the prime steelhead habitats within the county. The Sportsman Gazetteer in 1877 touted Stevens Creek as a fishing destination. Six physical specimens were collected in 1893 by Stanford Biology Professor W. W. Thoburn and are in the California Academy of Sciences collection, in 1898 John Otterbein Snyder collected steelhead trout specimens in Stevens Creek
San Lorenzo River
The San Lorenzo River is a 29. Not far from the sea indicates that the party crossed the river at one of what became the commonly used fords. The fords, in turn, became the locations for the first two bridges across the river - at todays Water Street and Soquel Avenue, in 1863, the California Powder Works was built adjacent to the river three miles upstream from Santa Cruz. The powder works made gunpowder for California mining after normal supplies had been interrupted by the American Civil War, during dry summer weather when the river was low, the total river flow might be diverted into the flume from below the dam. The powder mill was closed in 1914 and the dam demolished, the San Lorenzo River was once one of the most popular steelhead trout and coho salmon rivers on the Central Coast of California. Approximately 26 miles of the San Lorenzo River, and at least nine of its major tributaries, the San Lorenzo River supported the largest coho salmon and steelhead fishery south of San Francisco Bay, and the fourth largest steelhead fishery in the State of California.
In 1960, it was estimated there were more than 30,000 fish living in this river. Fishing regulations were changed in 1998 in order to protect wild stocks vs. hatchery stocks, the changes in the regulations have been minimally effective and additional conservation/preservation efforts are still needed. Coho salmon and steelhead of the San Lorenzo River are listed as endangered and threatened, coho have returned as a result of stocking efforts at the Kingfisher Flat Hatchery on Scott Creeks Big Creek tributary. In 2014, coho captured from the river were transferred to the Big Creek hatchery to enable local genetics to be used for stocking. Reliable historic records from 1915 describe that in addition to quinnat and silver that occasional humpback, the San Lorenzo River watershed drains 138 square miles. The Branciforte Creek watershed is a major sub-basin of the San Lorenzo catchment-basin, the Newell Creek tributary was dammed to create Loch Lomond, a reservoir which supplies drinking water to Santa Cruz, California.
Following devastating floods in December 1955, the Army Corps of Engineers built flood control measures along the San Lorenzo River and that was because a large amount of sediment had re-deposited in the channel after it was built. The original project design required periodic dredging of the bed sediment, the flood control channel was not maintained regularly, presumably for those reasons. The levees and floodwalls were rebuilt in 2004, but the design for those changes still assumed that the bed would be maintained by dredging. The current and likely future levels of protection provided by the project. A habitat restoration project has been underway since 1985, recent counts of fish show the population is slowly rising to approximately 3000. Tidal influence wanes between the Broadway and Soquel Avenue bridges in the city of Santa Cruz, where some sand bars are visible
State park
State parks are parks or other protected areas managed at the sub-national level within those nations which use state as a political subdivision. State parks are established by a state to preserve a location on account of its natural beauty, historic interest. There are state parks under the administration of the government of each U. S. state, some of the Mexican states, the term is used in the Australian state of Victoria. The equivalent term used in Canada, South Africa, similar systems of local government maintained parks exist in other countries, but the terminology varies. State parks are thus similar to parks, but under state rather than federal administration. Similarly, local government entities below state level may maintain parks, in general, state parks are smaller than national parks, with a few exceptions such as the Adirondack Park in New York and Anza-Borrego Desert State Park in California. As of 2014, there were 10,234 state park units in the United States, there are some 739 million annual visits to the countrys state parks.
The NASPD further counts over 43,000 miles of trail,217,367 campsites, many states include designations beyond state park in their state parks systems. Other designations might be state recreation areas, state beaches, some state park systems include long-distance trails and historic sites. The title of oldest state park in the United States is claimed by Niagara Falls State Park in New York, however several public parks previously or currently maintained at the state level pre-date it. Indian Springs State Park has been operated continuously by the state of Georgia as a park since 1825. In 1864 Yosemite Valley and Mariposa Grove were ceded by the government to California until Yosemite National Park was proclaimed in 1890. In 1878 Wisconsin set aside a vast swath of its forests as The State Park but, needing money. The first state park with the designation of state park was Mackinac Island State Park in 1895, list of U. S. state parks National Association of State Park Directors Wilderness preservation systems in the United States Ahlgren, Carol.
The Civilian Conservation Corps and Wisconsin State Park Development, the State Park Movement in America, A Critical Review excerpt and text search Larson, Zeb. Silver Falls State Park and the Early Environmental Movement, oregon Historical Quarterly 112#1 pp, 34-57 in JSTOR Newton, Norman T. When Forests Trumped Parks, The Maryland Experience, 1906-1950, Maryland Historical Magazine 101#2 pp, 203-224
Long Ridge (San Mateo County, California)
Long Ridge is a hill located in the Santa Cruz Mountains in the San Francisco Bay Area, California. The hill rises to an elevation of about 2,600 feet on private property near Highway 35, the hill is the highest point in San Mateo County. A hill to the northeast of Long Ridge rises to 2,566 feet, some snow falls on the mountain during the winter. The Long Ridge Open Space Preserve is named for this ridge, list of highest points in California by county
Mount Thayer
Mount Thayer is a mountain in the Santa Cruz mountain range located in Santa Clara County, California. The summit is in a section of the abandoned Almaden Air Force Station, the elevation of the summit is at 3,479 feet feet. An old derelict building, surrounded by telephone poles, is located on the summit, Mount Thayer, along with the surrounding property is off limits to the public. List of summits of the San Francisco Bay Area Mount Thayer
