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Home My WebLink AboutMINUTES - 07261994 - 1.54 r 1.52 through 1.57 THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS OF CONTRA COSTA COUNTY, CALIFORNIA Adopted this Order on July 26,1994, by the following vote: AYES: Supervisors Smith, Bishop, DeSaulnier, Torlakson and Powers NOES: None ABSENT: None ABSTAIN: None ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ SUBJECT: CORRESPONDENCE Item No. 1 . 52 LETTER dated July 12, 1994 , from L. Dow, Vice Chair, Citizen United, 2232 Concord Drive, Pittsburg 94565, relating to proposed recycling and transfer stations . ***REFERRED TO DIRECTOR, GROWTH MANAGEMENT AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AGENCY, HEALTH SERVICES DIRECTOR, AND COUNTY COUNSEL FOR REPORT ON AUGUST 9, 1994 1 . 53 LETTERS received July 1994, from Alamo citizens opposing the proposed widening of Stone Valley Road in the Alamo area. ***REFERRED TO PUBLIC WORKS DIRECTOR 1 . 54 LETTER dated July 13 , 1994 , from A. B. McNabney, Mt . Diablo Audubon Society, P.O. Box 53 , Walnut Creek 94596 , requesting consideration of a Riparian Corridor Policy in Contra Costa County. ***REFERRED TO WATER COMMITTEE AND CONTRA COSTA COUNTY FLOOD CONTROL & WATER CONSERVATION DISTRICT 1 . 55 LETTER dated July 14, 1994 , from David R. Frey, 223 Devonshire Court, Pleasant Hill 94523 , relating to Veterans preference credits for county employement . ***REFERRED TO ACTING DIRECTOR OF PERSONNEL TO CHECK WITH OTHER COUNTIES ON THEIR PROCEDURES AND REQUEST COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR' S OFFICE TO NOTIFY MR. FREY WHEN THIS ITEM IS .AGAIN BEFORE THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS 1 . 56 LETTER dated July 11, 1994 , from C. Purcell, Development Disabilities Council, 2801 Robert H. Miller Drive, Richmond 94806 , recommending appointment to the Area Developmental Disabilities Board 5 . ***REFERRED TO INTERNAL OPERATIONS COMMITTEE CORRESPONDENCE - JULY 26, 1994 PAGE 2 1 . 57 LETTER dated July 14 , 1994, from Bert Heffner, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, P.O. Box 808, Livermore 94550, transmitting its first annual "Mitigation Measure" monitoring report required as part of the laboratories 1992 Environmental Impact Reports . ***RECEIVED REPORTS I hereby certify that this is a true and correct copyof an action taken and entered on the minutes of the Board of Su is rs on the date shown ATTESTED PHIL.BA HE R, Clerk of the Efoard z Supervi ors and Coouunty Administrator - r-.-a.Oeputy CC: Correspondents County Administrator Health Services Director County Counsel Public Works Director Water Committee Acting Director of Personnel Internal Operations Committee Director, Growth Management and Economic Development Agency Contra Costa County Flood Control & Water Conservation District i . 54 MT. DIABLO AUDUBON SOCIETY P.O. BOX 53 WALNUT CREEK,CALIFORNIA 94596 10 July 1994 �• RECEIVE® Al JUL 131994 Board of Supervisors--Contra Costa County CLERIC {;%g, Cjr SUPERVISORS To the Mayors and Members City Councils-Cities and towns-Contra Costa County GreetingsALProtections of creeks and riparian areas Contra Costa County has within its geographical boundries a number of streams (creeks) that have important habitat values for birds and other wildlife, as well as for human (recreational) enjoyment. We direct attention to a Pian adopted by the City of San Jose to establish a "Riparian Corridor Policy". We are providing a few pertinent pages from a study carried out for the City of San Jose. A Draft Report was issued under date of 17 May 1994. Your particular attention is directed to the following: "The study provides the City through the baseline inventory and a series of policy guidelines, information to identify and manage its riparian resources in an environmentally senstive manner to protect them for environmental as well as recrational purposes'. We respectfully suggest to the County and all of the cities and towns in Contra Costa County that arrangements be made to develop a unified Plan which will result in joint action. The action to establish setbacks of at least 100 ft., along riparian corridors i.e. creeks et al to protect wildlife habitat and provide recreational opportunities for people. Thank you for your favorable consideration and action, we remain, Respectfully, A. B. McNabney Vice President-Conservation 9 Printed on 100%Recyded Paper t �1 1T i> INTRODUCTION PURPOSE OF STUDY regarding riparian protection, should be subject, at a minimum, to the development The overall purpose of the Riparian Corridor guidelines in this document. Policy Study is to explore in detail issues related to General Plan policies which promote This Study, consisting of this policy document the preservation of riparian corridors, the and the separate map set entitled Riparian areas along natural streams, and haw these Corridor Policy Study - Resource Inventory, corridors should be treated for consistency addresses several issues relating to the _ with the General Plan. This study identifies identification,management and,ultimately, the each riparian corridor within the City's Urban protection of riparian resources. These Service Area and Urban Reserves and defines include: jtr the term "riparian corridor"; it discusses the importance of the riparian corridors,how they a definition of riparian corridor, ` may be at risk and how they should be • an inventory and description of biotic protected. resources, ' • identification of existing public and The General Plan provides the policy quasi-public lands adjacent to corridors, foundation for the City's treatment of riparian • identification of future flood control corridors and (will) incorporate(s) the major activities, findings of this study. The development guidelines to protect biotic resource design guidelines in Chapter 3 are intended to values when development occurs near be used in conjunction with the City's corridors, and Residential Design Guidelines, Commercial • measures for development of recreational Design Guidelines and Industrial Design facilities along corridors. Guidelines; the major provisions of the riparian corridor guidelines will be (are) This study provides the City, through the g incorporated into those design guidelines baseline inventory and a series of policy documents. guidelines, information to identify and manage its riparian resources in an environmentally This study document (will) support(s) the sensitive manner to protect them for General Plan and Design Guidelines treatment environmental as well as recreational of ripariancorridors by providing a more purposes. 1` detailed rationale for preservation and specific discussions of the appropriate relationship It is recognized that potential conflicts.exist between development and riparian habitats. among competing land uses along the City's riparian corridors (e.g., land development, ?` This study has addressed itself primarily to flood control protection, habitat preservation). r riparian corridors within the Urban Service This policy study attempts to achieve a Area {USA} based on an assumption that balance among these potentially incompatible corridors outside the USA enjoy some land use activities through the application of substantial General Pian policy protection and development guidelines; these development are not typically subject to damage from urban guidelines are intended for use within the development. It is the City's intent, however, context of the overall goals of the City. that any development, recreation facilities, or agricultural activities, outside the USA and not subject to specific General Plan direction 686-01 1 Riparian Values In areas where strearnside vegetation h. removed, revegetated buffer zones i The streams within the City,of San Jose are a critical to the continued survival of valuable natural resource supporting a organisms and native fish species s diversity of habitats and a great variety of steelhead and salmon. aquatic and terrestrial resources. Several distinct habitats occur along the stream Vegetated stream corridors provide prk corridors, such as riparian, freshwater marsh, of water quality through buffering urba. salt-brackish water marsh, and transitional water runoff and reducing erosic upland habitats. Numerous species of plants, sedimentation from constructior. fish, and wildlife occur within the riparian agricultural activities. Protection of ve corridors, including several species identified stream corridors is consistent wit as sensitive by State and Federal resource management practices (BMP's) devek agencies. Streams and riparian corridors are the Santa Clara Valley Nonpoint also a valuable visual/aesthetic resource, open Pollution Control Program. Nonpoin; space and recreational resources,and often are pollution alters stream temperatures, rc the City's densest urban forest resources. levels, nutrient concentrations and chemistry, all of which can have si(,, Riparian systems provide very important deleterious effects on aquatic habit habitat for aquatic invertebrates, fish, functioning riparian system can cleans, amphibians, birds and mammals. A number of excess nutrients, herbicides, pestici of species are dependent on a healthy riparian sediment that would otherwise enter tl, community for survival. Riparian habitat channels, the Bay or the ground water widths are necessary to maintain some breeding bird populations. Vegetative buffer There is significant evidence tha-i areas, outside the defined riparian corridor, riparian corridors also contribute e,. are necessary to: value to a community by adding to I values and providing attractive envirk • Protect water quality, ensuring habitat for for businesses and their employees. invertebrates and fish, which support shorebirds, wading birds and other Residential, commercial, agricultur-- animals. space and recreational land surrou riparian corridors within the City (FI: • Provide food, cover and migration Many of these land uses, coupled corridors for a number of amphibians and accompanying need for flood protectlik reptile species including sensitive and over time, altered the natural featurt, candidate threatened;endangered. species City's landscape, including the amc, such as the tiger salamander, red-legged condition of its. riparian, resources. frog, yellow-legged frog, and western and rivers that historically supported r., pond turtle. wide corridors of natural vegetation o flood plains now support narrow I • Provide cover and food sources for other vegetation within their banks or ha riparian wildlife species that range modified for flood protection and watt between riparian and upland areas. A purposes (e.g., in-stream percolation number of mammals use the full width of Flood protection and water supply a riparian system for forage, cover, and responsibility of the Santa Clara Valk migration. District. Recognizing the biological, and even economic importance of its • Provide wildlife migration corridors resources and the opportunities these during high runoff periods. provide for recreational use, the Cit. 686-01 2 Jose commissioned this Riparian Policy set entitled Riparian Corridor Policy Study - Corridor Study in 1992. Resource Inventory). THE DEFINITION OF RIPARIAN For purposes of this study, a riparian CORRIDOR corridor includes any defined stream Fchannels including the area up to the bank Any statement of policy needs to clearly full-flow line, as well as all riparian define the extent to which it applies. The (streamside) vegetation in contiguous t issue of riparian/stream corridor policy and adjacent uplands. Characteristic woody policy guidelines is particularly complex riparian vegetation species could include because there is no accepted standard riparian (but are not limited to): willow, Salix sp.; corridor definition. Municipalities throughout alder, Alnus sp.; box elder, Acer negundo; i California use several different approaches for Fremont cottonwood, Populus fremondi; F defining riparian corridors; these range from bigleaf maple, Acer macrophyllum; western physical attributes (i.e., diagnostic vegetation, sycamore, Platanus racemosa; and oaks,. stream morphology [physical form, shape, and Quercus sp. Stream channels include all size], or .hydrology [capacity to convey perennial and intermittent streams shown as floodwaters]), relative importance in a solid or dashed blue line on USGS relationship to arbitrary standard width, topographic maps, and ephemeral streams mapping approaches, and combinations, or"arroyos"with well-defined channels and thereof. some evidence of scour or deposition. "Riparian" is generally used as an adjective to Riparian corridors are often referred to as modify other terms. Although it may be "sensitive resource areas" and/or "sensitive narrowly applied to refer to streambank areas wildlife habitat". These terms are derived only, it may be more broadly defined as from state and federal Endangered Species Acts that protect species and their habitat that "pertaining to the banks and other are listed as endangered or threatened, or adjacent terrestrial (as opposed to proposed for such listing. The California aquatic) environs of freshwater Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) also bodies, watercourses, estuaries, and recognizes "species of special concern" and surface-emergent aquifers (springs, their habitats; they are not specifically seeps, oases), whose transported protected by the Endangered Species Act, but freshwaters provide soil moisture they are recognized as declining species. r sufficiently in excess of that Since riparian corridors may provide habitat Y otherwise available through local for endangered species• and/or Species of precipitation to potentially support Special Concern, they are often referred`to,as growth of mesic vegetation." "sensitive resource/wildlife habitat areas''. (Warner 1984) A map-based riparian definition relies on the In determining a suitable riparian corridor availability of inventory data and the ability of definition for the City of San Jose, a number the City to refine and add to the mapped data of different approaches to the definition, as base as staff time allows and/or development j used by various jurisdictions, were reviewed project applications are submitted to the City (Appendix A). Based upon this review, for review/approval. The riparian corridors o coupled with the riparian corridor inventory within the City's Urban Service Area and conducted as part of this study, both a Urban Reserves were mapped as part of this standard definition and a map-based delin- study and provide a baseline inventory of the eation are provided (see Figure 1 and the map City's riparian corridor resources (Riparian Corridor Policy Study - Resource Inventory). 686-01 3 r Because of their size, the maps cannot be included in this document and are available for inspection in the Department of City Planning and Building. These maps are an integral part of the City's riparian policies and may be subject to more site-specific mapping and refinement dependent upon potential future development on affected properties and future studies that provide more detailed boundary delineation (e.g., riparian corridor inventory project currently funded by the EPA). With this approach the City can continue to refine its identification of riparian corridors, thus assisting both property owners and the City to make appropriate development decisions. 686-01 4