City of Oakland California

The Sausal Creek restoration project is a collaborative effort by the City of Oakland, the Alameda County Flood Control & Water Conservation District and the Friends of Sausal Creek. The restoration focuses on the creek that runs through Dimond Park below Wellington Street. The project will remove the culvert below Wellington to open up a long-buried stretch of creek, and widen the existing creek to create a more stable, natural and diverse riparian corridor. Please watch the brief video discussing the restoration project.

The goal of the Sausal Creek Restoration Project in Dimond Park is to create a sustainable, safe and healthy creek environment for fish, wildlife, adjacent properties and park users.

FAQs

Why does the creek need to be restored?
About 60 to 80 years ago, the creek was moved and parts of it were culverted. As a result, the creek has become unstable and is suffering from erosion and down-cutting. The creek is headed for an emergency situation if nothing is done. As the creek banks erode, they become steeper and the banks fail. The erosion and instability are threatening local infrastructure, large trees and nearby homes. Additionally, the creek wildlife habitat is becoming degraded and the native rainbow trout have become trapped below the culvert.

Why does restoration of the creek require grading?
In order to create a stable creek channel, the channel has to be moved and widened and the creek banks have to be graded to a less steep slope. Because there are houses on the right bank, the only way to stabilize the channel is to move the creek bed and lay back the creek bank towards the park.

Why do some trees need to be removed?
The trees to be removed are within the area that must be graded to create a more stable creek channel. The top design priority has been to preserve as many trees as possible. The project designers focused their efforts on keeping the new channel as narrow as feasible while still crafting a sustainable channel design that would be approved by the State permitting authorities. Alternative approaches such as a second channel or a more typical creek restoration width would have resulted in more loss of trees.

Can these redwoods be considered “old growth” redwoods?
No.  The oldest redwoods in the project area are 80 years old.  Old growth redwoods are typically hundreds of years old.

What is being done with the redwood wood from the trees that are being cut?
The large redwood root wads and trunks will be placed in the bank for habitat, and bank stabilization, other log sections will be used for on-site benches and landscape features and the small remainders maybe used as edging or mulch.

Are all the trees being removed?
No. A majority of the larger California native trees in the lower Dimond Park area will be preserved, including 40 redwood trees (19 in the creek project area) and numerous oaks, buckeyes and maples.

How many trees would be removed?
42 trees, larger than 9 inch diameter (4 inch for oaks), would need to be removed for the project. 27 of those are native trees, including 17 redwoods. The remainder includes oak, plum, elm, acacia and pittosporum. Additionally, several small and one large eucalyptus are also proposed to be removed.

Will new trees be planted as part of the creek restoration project?
The project includes planting at least 80 new native habitat trees, over 500 new willows, as well as thousands of new native habitat plants.

You can view images of current site conditions, restoration design plans, public and watershed information below:

• Photos of Existing Conditions
• Project Slide Show
• Schematic Site Plan
• Schematic Plan Cross-Sections
• Tree Removal Plan
• Site Aerial Diagram
• Watershed Map
• Public Outreach
• Tree Permit Summary
• Historic Photos of Sausal Creek
• Tree Report

The project is funded by a State of California River Parkways Grant (Proposition 50), the Alameda County Flood Control & Water Conservation District and Measure DD: Oakland Trust for Clean Water & Safe Parks.
If you have questions, please call (510) 238-6600 or email watersheds@oaklandnet.com.