Barbara O’Reilly, a volunteer for GreenTown’s Water Stewardship Committee, passionately believes that our members should learn about and care for one of our local streams so that we can understand their history and what it takes to make them healthy enough to support fish and other wildlife. “What better way to get to know our watershed than to be responsible for a part of it,” says Barbara, a longtime GreenTown volunteer.
To make this a reality, she has spearheaded a two-part effort to manage sections of Permanente Creek just north of Loyola Corners. The first section runs along Heritage Oaks Park and represents the creek in a fairly natural state. Working with the City of Los Altos, she has offered that GreenTown will clean that section. Contrasting this is the Permanent Creek Diversion Channel, for which Barb, on behalf of GreenTown, initiated adoption proceedings from the Santa Clara Valley Water District Adopt-A-Creek program. This channel section runs from Portland Ave. (and Miramonte) to where it flows under Hwy 85 near its connection with Stevens Creek in Mountain View.
The Water Stewardship Committee plans to organize educational events on the creek as well as twice-yearly creek cleanups. The first GreenTown Creek Cleanup will be held on National River Cleanup Day, Saturday May 21, 2011, from 9am to noon. Sign up here http://permanentecreek.eventbrite.com to help clean up our newly-adopted creek section, learn about the different parts of the creek, and gain access to the fenced-in area of the channel as part of the cleanup team.
Pictures of this channel are shown below. View more photos on our Facebook Page.
Diversion Channel from Portland Bridge
Diversion Channel by Blach School
