Where trees once stood tall with their branches swaying in southeast San Francisco's gentle breezes, a bulldozer rips up another heap of ash-colored soil. Upon the placid sandy banks of Islais Creek in Bayview, grass once grew. Flowers blossomed among the shrubs and bushes. Birds migrated to the urban oasis known as Muwekma Ohlone Refuge and Park, located behind a strip of warehouses parallel to Third Street. When the kingfishers returned to perch on tree branches to eye a meal swimming in the shallows of the creek this winter, they found no branches but trucks and construction equipment instead. Most of the trees were gone; the refuge was destroyed.
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| Photo by Craig Young |
| David Erickson is in a legal fight with MUNI to restore the Urban botanical refuge he created in the Bayview Hunters Point near Islais Creek. |
Last year near-by construction work caused a sewage pipe to collapse, resulting in gallons of treated waste to seep into the refuge. In order to fix the pipe, the city's Municipal Railway (MUNI) had to destroy the garden. Ironically, with the help of an environmental attorney, the garden's destruction provided the impetus for it to become officially maintained and monitored.
"I don't even bother (visiting the refuge) right now," said Mikey, a near-by resident who declined to give his last name but used to spend hours relaxing in the park. "There's just a big scab in the middle of it now. It was really calm in there before, now it's uncomfortable."
The refuge began 10 years ago with one man, David Erickson. He lives in one of the neighboring studio warehouses, just a stone's throw from the remains of what was once a sanctuary for wildlife. In the warm sunshine one recent day, he stepped over a low chain-linked fence. The smell of brackish water from the nearby creek mixed with the strong scent of muddy clay. What took ten years to build for the Bayview-Hunters Point community has been reduced to a pair of small verdant patches. They are separated by a deep trench filled with stagnating water covering the power lines for the Third Street Light Rail. Erickson said his garden grew steadily for about eight years. The trees and plants that did grow, he said, had to be strong enough to withstand the high tide of Islais Creek. He said that while the low tide, gave the garden an additional two or even three acres of wet sand, when the tide came in, it sometimes converted the garden into a marshland about the size of half a city block. Erickson escribed this as a tough love for his plants.
"I wanted it to be a sanctuary for wildlife, something small and with minimal disturbance," he said.
Under his thumb, the garden, named after the Native American Muwekma Ohlone tribe who once inhabited the Bay Area, grew into a park. At the Muwekma Ohlone Reserve, there were frog ponds, great bushes, and trees.
Project receives funding
About two years ago, Erickson applied for an urban resources partnership (URP) grant from the US Department of Agriculture. In conjunction with other groups like the San Francisco Conservation Corps and other partnerships with urban beautification groups like the San Francisco League of Urban Gardeners (SLUG), Erickson's garden received $30,000 in federal moneys. He was astounded.
"I don't know how that happened," he said.
With the money, Erickson continued to work on his garden. He said that while it was in conjunction with organizations, he still worked on it alone most of the time. Youth groups and school agencies came to learn about the park. It proved to be a popular destination for elementary school field trips.
Photos from clean-up crews and restoration projects sponsored by the San Francisco Conservation Corps and SLUG depict grinning children. They wear gloves and hold their shovels and other garden tools as prized possessions.
Erickson said that these young children loved turning over rocks on the sandy banks during low tide. The boys, he said, would look for crabs and try to startle their female classmates. The girls, in turn, tried to identify which crabs were the head of the household and which were the babies. More importantly, volunteer chaperones often told him that this refuge was the one place they looked forward to visiting time and time again.
"It's not much, but it's something," said Erickson.
In addition to the large federal grant, the Muwekma reserve received $64,000 from the Mayor's Office of Community Development. At that time, Erickson said that he felt optimistic about his garden and reaching his goal of turning it over to the a public place for the neighborhood.
"It really started to bloom," he said.
Watching the garden grow
The garden flowered into a peaceful refuge. Benches, ponds for tree frogs and simple irrigation systems for the shrubs and bushes were installed. It became the territory for hummingbirds; mockingbirds too. During the herring season from November to March, seals by the thousand followed the schools of fish into the creek and lounged among the rocks and logs. Clouds of birds blotted out the sun and the seals barked throughout the night. Since the pipe collapse their numbers have diminished greatly. This December, there are no flocks of birds nor basking seals.
The garden also appeared to have been one of the few publicly accessible green spaces in the area. According to data from the Department of Recreation and Parks and the Neighborhood Parks Council, a San Francisco non-profit organization, only the tip of Heron's Head Park, which is maintained by Pacific Gas and Electric, and the San Francisco Port's Warm Water Cove Park for the approximately 16,906 residents living within a 1-mile radius.
The majority of official park and green space land in District 10's 396 acres omes from McLaren Golf Course in Visitacion Valley. Without the course and the other parks in Potrero Hill and Vistitacion Valley there are only about 57 acres in Bayview and Hunters Point; the largest one, the Gilman Playground (including the clubhouse and children's playground) is roughly 7 acres. The Muwekma refuge, therefore, added to this figure to a considerable degree.
In November 2001, MUNI's primary contractor, San Francisco-based Pro Ven, was laying duct banks for the Third Street Light Rail. Duct banks, according to Erickson, are the power lines necessary for the light rail to run. To establish these duct banks, Pro Ven used horizontal drilling. Instead of traditional drilling techniques, which dive straight down, horizontal drilling burrows and creates tunnels. The drilling started a few feet away from the park and went underneath Isais Creek. While they were drilling, however, a low pressure pipe from the neighboring sewage plant collapsed, sending gallons of treated sewage all over the park's grassy floor. Neither Pro Ven nor MUNI were willing to confirm or deny these procedures.
Erickson vividly remembers officials from MUNI, the sewage plant, the port and Pro Ven gathering at the park. They had to tear up his decade of work to fix the break.
"I was screaming bloody murder that I need some time to transplant," he said.
Sewage wreaks havoc
Instead of waters from the high tide coming in, Erickson said everything was covered in treated sewage. It bubbled up to the surface spewing sand and sediment in the frog ponds. Workers removed the benches and bulldozers and backhoes began to rip out the shrubs and smaller trees. In the end the pipe was fixed and the drilling continued, but the refuge, no more than five or six acres, was in a sorry state. After the damage had been done, MUNI was responsive.
"The first thing they said was that they wouldn't walk away from this," said Erickson. "But it wasn't like I had their warm embrace."
MUNI held a few meetings with Bayview residents and the original grant directors like SLUG of Muwekma Refuge. Erickson describes these meetings as nothing more than a dog and pony show because he saw nothing arise from them. At these meetings Erickson presented them with his plans for restoration.
"A habitat is more than just a few trees and bushes. It's an eco-system with animals, plants, and insects," he said.
The refuge at Islais Creek was even more than an eco-system. According to Margaret Feldmann at the California Academy of Science, the inter-tidal zone at the creek was a fresh-water deposit into the bay.
"I don't know if there is another area like it (in the Bay Area)," she said.
Feldmann also said that the refuge looked like a promising home for wildlife unique to San Francisco like herons, egrets and otters. Before the collapse, the California Academy of Science, in conjunction with the Bayview YMCA, took neighborhood children to the area in order to plant some native grasses near the shore. Feldmann returned to the refuge after their planting.
"It was awful," she said. "At this point, it looks pretty hopeless out there."
Seeking a settlement
Erickson, however, is not giving up. He requested that MUNI assist in a complete restoration of Muwekma. He said there are two distinct phases for a proper restoration of an eco-system. The first being the infrastructure restoration, primarily consisting of grounds work like the replacement of fences, re-establishing irrigation systems. The second phase is habitat restoration, which is the replanting. Erickson and the San Francisco League of Urban Gardeners wrote them an invoice for about $9,000 to cover labor and administration costs in restoring the refuge. Muni flatly rejected their plans.
"Their restoration was dead," said the gardeners' attorney Patrick Goggin.
According to Goggin, Muni originally wanted to restore the refuge on its own terms. This meant importing their own workers or contractors to do the work. No one in the community wanted to see that, he said.
Organizations like SLUG and the San Francisco Conservation Corps, in their frustration from the meetings with MUNI and the contractors, hired Goggin.
"He made them stand up and pay attention," said Erickson. "It never even occurred to me to hire a lawyer."
Goggin's legal approach does not center around litigation. He firmly believes in alternative dispute resolutions. With this mind set, Goggin sought to work out a resolution without having to file a suit. In a letter to Muni, Goggin wrote that a restoration of Muwekma must be done by the community and no one else. Muni was still unresponsive.
In the spring of 2002, Goggin ultimately filed a claim against the city for half a million dollars. The claim encompassed long-term monitoring and maintenance of the site for ten years. By June, the claim was denied due to a procedural flaw.
Goggin then spoke with San Francisco Port officials to negotiate a long-term lease for the site. The port brought MUNI to the table, he said. Nevertheless, MUNI has not claimed liability. In fact, MUNI is in litigation with its contractors to determine who is at fault.
"The Port has been an instrumental ally," said Goggin.
Before the pipe collapse, the relationship between the refuge and the port was inactive. Now, in spite of its reputation for the development of the Illinois Street Bridge, which many residents fear will bring heavy traffic to their quiet neighborhood, the port has been supportive of Muwekma refuge.
"It's a feather in their cap," said Goggin.
From urban refuge to urban waste
Today no one comes to the refuge. There are no longer excited children turning over rocks in hope of finding a crab or two. Most of the animals are gone too. On a weekend, a few boats silently move up the creek and see the tall grasses and handful of eucalyptus trees that once was a flourishing refuge.
The restoration has been extremely slow. Because MUNI is still laying the duct banks, the gaping hole still takes up the middle portion of the refuge. Erickson examines a leaky hose used to connect and water the separated parts of his garden.
Pro Ven and MUNI have provided him with a replacement irrigation system but they have not installed it yet. In the meantime, he uses what he has, a collection of long rubber hoses which are prone to breaking and leaking.
"I find it astounding to have a horizontal drilling contractor...say they can't fix a simple irrigation system," he said.
Muni has not given the community any date of completion. SLUG project manager Steven Patton said that everything at Muwekma is really just on hold. The construction of the duct banks along with a missing drill bit have delayed their completion and keep Pro Ven near the creek. While Pro Ven works well away from the actual garden site, the heavy machinery, said Patton, would still affect the refuge wildlife.
According to San Francisco Port project manager Kathy Nakazawa, Muni and Pro Ven are in the final stages of construction on port property. She said that the port is looking over final designs of the duct banks to make sure they are adequate and because of winter rains and the holidays, she estimates that construction on the property will end sometime in January.
The restoration
Although Goggin and Erickson have not been able to actively restore the refuge, Goggin has made progress in negotiating with the city, contractors and Muni. Some of Pro Ven's insurance companies, however, refuse to come to the table. Pro Ven could not be reached for comment.
"They don't want to be a part of any community building," he said. Instead, they would rather hire an attorney and litigate.
While the city works with Goggin and their own insurance companies to establish some sort of recompensation, the refuge suffers. Because the refuge has been inactive for so long, Muwekma has had to forfeit the Mayor's Office of Community Development grant. What little restoration Erickson can do, he said, comes out of his pocket. As a result, Erickson has incurred some debt.
"I'm two weeks away from a shopping cart; like a lot of us," said Erickson.
Goggin is optimistic about the refuge's future. After the complaint had been filed, the city and their contractors have 30 days to respond. The first court appearance is scheduled in May. Goggin is hoping for a resolution that will allow Erickson and SLUG to have some kind of formal lease of the property. With that formality, the garden would be maintained and monitored better.
In the meantime, the refuge remains in two pieces. Erickson is doing what he can with two meager small clean ups and transplants since the pipe collapse. Furthermore, he continues to be an active participant with MUNI and the port. His attorney finds that this kind of participation is the driving force of Muwekma.
"It takes activism to keep these things alive," said Goggin.