Sausal Creek Watershed Awareness Program

The Sausal Creek Watershed Awareness Program is a burgeoning project that was initiated to involve the community in protecting and restoring Sausal Creek in Oakland. It is based on the model for the San Leandro Creek Watershed Awareness Program. The first meeting for this project was in January. Since then, there have been monthly meetings and a watershed tour in March.

The Sausal Creek area is an ethnically and socially diverse section of Oakland. The creek runs through many different neighborhoods. One of the challenges facing the project is getting the various sects of the community to work together in the restoration process.

Previous Studies

In 1995, Henry Baltazar, a UC Berkeley student majoring in Environmental Sciences, evaluated the Contra Costa County Teachers Action Grants Program (CCCTAG). The CCCTAG program was designed by SFEIÕs Education department to implement unique teaching programs into Bay Area schools. The purpose of BaltazarÕs study was to examine whether or not the results of the 1994/1995 CCCTAG projects met the criteria established by the sponsors and administrators. He evaluated according to the following criteria set by the Contra Costa Clean Water Program: pollution prevention, sustainability, community involvement, in-kind services, and publicity. Baltazar discovered that while most projects made some progress in fostering community awareness, problems arose in terms of allocation of funds and efficiency.

Denise Hall, a graduate student at UC Berkeley, interviewed community members to find out their issues concerning Sausal Creek. She did this study in 1995, right before SFEI initiated the Sausal Creek Watershed Awareness Program in January 96. The issues she studied included access to and use of the creek, creek restoration, and city involvement. Hall found that, in general, people felt that the City of OaklandÕs involvement was crucial to the project. However, many were skeptical as to whether city officials would adequately address their concerns.

The Fruitvale and Lower Hills Communities

Sausal Creek runs through two adjacent sections of Oakland: Fruitvale and Lower Hills. The two areas are socially and ethnically different. According to the 1994 Housing and Population Trends report, the populations are roughly the same, Fruitvale having 40, 016 persons and Lower Hills containing 37, 857 persons. However, the ethnic breakdown of each community varies. The data is shown below.

Fruitvale

Caucasion 16%
African-American 26%
Hispanic 37%
Asian 20%
Other 1%

Lower Hills

Caucasion 59%
African-American 18%
Hispanic 6%
Asian 16%
Other 1%

The demographics illustrate how ethnically diverse the areas are. This issue should be taken into account in terms of how to approach the problems pertaining to Sausal Creek. After all, it is very likely that these different ethnic groups have different priorities.

Studying the Sausal Creek Watershed Awareness Program

The purpose of my study was to examine whether the people participating in the program represent the community at large. I used surveys to determine the representation of various ethnic groups.

Overall, I found that the ethnic make-up of the program meetings was similar to that of the Lower Hills area. These results would be understandable if they only applied to the Dimond Library meetings, since that library is in Lower Hills. However, even at the Sanborn Park meetings, the overwhelming majority of people were Caucasion as well. This result does not correlate with the demographics of the whole Fruitvale population.

Conclusions

I conclude that efforts must be made by environmentally-focused community groups to reach out to underrepresented ethnic groups. These groups must try to convey the importance of their communityÕs enviromental issues through education awareness and activities.