I had a nice surprise yesterday in the mail with the arrival of Ann Riley’s much awaited urban creek book. Her first one published 25 years ago and became the restoration bible. It is still a valuable asset and regarded as a necessary resource even though others on the subject have been published since. This second one is all about successful creek restoration stories – both labor intensive and natural. And guess who’s in it from page 171-179? That would be the story of the Martinez Beavers, who moved into an urban creek and transformed it all by themselves.
Riley has been a good friend of the beavers over the years but she wasn’t exactly forthcoming with this part of her book. It was strange and exciting to read our story told by an outsider and see myself consistently described as ‘Perryman’. Ha. The scan came out horrible but here are some wonderful segments worth sharing.
I love having this documented correctly in a book that will likely survive the next 25 years and beyond. Riley works for the SF waterboard and has done several trainings about planting trees out here. It’s through her that we were able to have the watershed stewards the last couple of years working with the conservation core. I particularly love how she cracks open the creek scientists pretend enviromental reports that the city paid for to have justification for their impulses. And of course I loved THIS.
How happy do you think the city will to be to read about that historic sheetpile? Maybe they’ll throw me a parade? That whole ordeal was such a nauseating bundle of tension that I have long repressed it: I was terrified every moment that the beavers would be killed. I can’t believe they survived. And I remain very partial to this video.
I am bursting with pride at this paragraph and you can certainly see why this reference made the wikipedia challenger disappear. Maybe its just me but I find it a little terrifying that many years ago in a panic I just happened to come across the 2005 ecological survey and made the decision to contrast it with the species we saw over time. I’m sure there were all kinds of reasons a well-trained person wouldn’t have done it. But I was right here when it all happened, and I remember how rare a thing it used to be to see a green heron or muskrat in the creek and how common it became.
More than anything else in the ENTIRE world I am wishing that some other city looks at this chapter and says hmmm, maybe we should try that. (And I’m looking at you, Mountain House). If allowing beavers to restore urban streams needed to be proven then I’m thrilled that Martinez was a testcase. I met Riley through Lisa Owens Vianni who I met through the SF bay Estuary project where she used to work. That got my foot in the proverbial door but it was my presentation at the Santa Barbra Salmonid Restoration Conference that impressed her.
She said it was might have been the best presentation they ever had.
There are a few picky things I would have changed about this chapter. The meeting wasn’t in chambers it was at the High School, and it was a Sacramento Splittail not a SPITTAIL and good lord I never want 5000 people at the beaver festival! But I’m so happy we’re in this very important book and the role our beavers played is documented forever. Thank you Ann Riley for bringing our story to the next level.
Anyone who cares about creeks and beavers should go buy a copy right now. It will pay for itself may times over.
