# San Tomas Aquino Creek Trail Closure May 12-May15 for maint. work.



## 4Crawler (Jul 13, 2011)

*San Tomas Aquino Creek Trail Closure May 12-May15 for maint. work. - POSTPONED -*

The Santa Clara Valley Water District will be conducting maintenance work along the San Tomas Aquino Creek Trail between May 12 and May 15. Sections will be temporarily closed between Highway 237 and Walsh Ave. 

For detour info:
- City of Santa Clara : News : San Tomas Aquino Creek Trail Closure


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## 4Crawler (Jul 13, 2011)

The Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition and the city of Santa Clara BPAC contacted the Santa Clara Valley Water District as soon as they heard about the scheduled trail maintenance that would close the San Tomas Aquino Trail on Bike to Work Day next week. Valley Water agreed to postpone their work to another date:
- Cyclelicious » Santa Clara Valley Water postpones trail work for Bike To Work Day


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## spdntrxi (Jul 25, 2013)

yeah I was going to say.. 5/14 Bike to work day... real smart


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## ziscwg (Apr 19, 2010)

spdntrxi said:


> yeah I was going to say.. 5/14 Bike to work day... real smart



looks like it's going to rain too. I'm a pu$$y and can't go out in the rain............

Or, I have to leave early for my daughter's 16th birthday festivities. One of the two.


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## 4Crawler (Jul 13, 2011)

Looks like the trail maint. work is rescheduled for 6/9-12:
- City of Santa Clara : News : San Tomas Aquino Creek Trail Maintenance Work


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## 4Crawler (Jul 13, 2011)

Anyone else notice the enormous quantity of trash beside the trail just to the south (downwind) end of the stadium? As if the eyesore of that stadium and closing the trail every other weekend is not enough, they have to dump all their trash along both sides of the trail as well! And if you go even 1/4 mile north of south of the stadium, no trash, so it is pretty obvious where the source of the trash is.

Took some photos yesterday and put them in the album below:
- https://goo.gl/photos/poFWMMtVXGKdpY1y7

First and last images are ~1/4 mile south and north from the stadium showing no trash beside the trail. Middle 3 images are just south of the stadium showing the wind blown trash littering both sides of the trail. Since it does not see to be blowing in from the north or continuing farther to the south (down wind direction), the source is clear. The photos do not capture the amount of trash, it is much worse in person:










The other thing I don't see is an Adopt-A-Creek sign along this stretch of San Tomas Creek:
- Adopt A Creek - Santa Clara Valley Water District
if the StadiumCo had any concern for the environment, seems like they would sign up and adopt the creek from Mission down to the golf course or beyond. One would think they would want to present a nice clean setting for their fans when they enter the stadium.

Since the city and stadium seem unresponsive to this issues (have been sending in complaints since early April), I've filed an illegal trash dumping complaint with the valley water district. Maybe that will light a fire under someones rear end! :mad2:


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## 4Crawler (Jul 13, 2011)

4Crawler said:


> ...
> Since the city and stadium seem unresponsive to this issues (have been sending in complaints since early April), I've filed an illegal trash dumping complaint with the valley water district. Maybe that will light a fire under someones rear end! :mad2:


I did get a reply from the water district last week that they would be looking into the matter. Hopefully they will come to the same conclusions I have as to the source of the trash.


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## 4Crawler (Jul 13, 2011)

Interesting to read the stadium EIR:
- http://santaclaraca.gov/modules/showdocument.aspx?documentid=12789

One section:



> 49ers Santa Clara Stadium
> 156
> Final EIR
> City of Santa Clara
> ...


So a couple of interesting take away points:

1. It appears that even in 2009, there were no plans to keep the creek trail open during events. Evidenced by no mention of looking for trash south of the stadium nor expecting any impact on the creek trail by stadium activities (i.e. if the trail is closed, no way for it to be trashed by inebriated fans). 

1a. Note that 2009 > 2013 which means this "plan" was in place 4 years prior to the Boston bombing which was supposedly the "reason" the security perimeter had to increase and the trail had to be closed.

2. " If trash is increased after an event, pre-determined mitigation measures should be implemented. "

Let's see, trash has increased after many events, implement pre-determined mitigation measures (i.e. blame game)
2a. Blame the cyclists and trail uses who pushed back to get the trail open for stadium attendees to use, now the stadium and city are saying it is the trail uses after a game that are causing the litter.

Given 2a. is correct, who are these trail users after games? By the stadium's own rules, they are ticket-holding event attendees, since that is the only ones allowed down the trail on event days.

And if you look at the "Secondly" response to comment NN-2, "trash receptacles should be installed at both ends of each pedestrian bridge and positive 
signage should be posted encouraging people to use the receptacles in order to keep the creek clean for fish and wildlife."

Yeah right, that should be good enough, NOT!

Now per the EIR, the stadium is responsible for cleaning up all temporary parking lots and facilities used during events. Why the heck can't they clean up the mess their fans make that choose to walk to ride a bike to the event. And yes, those low life slobs who toss their garbage out along the trail when they leave should be ticketed by SCPD, since they are breaking a city ordinance.

But no, the stadium company just wants to sit back and blame the cyclists who wanted to get some use of the trail back after it was stolen.

Just to stir the pot a little more, I also filed a complaint with the SF Bay Area Regional Water Quality Control Board, so we'll see what happens there. If that trash is not cleaned up by the start of rainy season, all the trash on the creek side bank is washing down stream and out into the bay. And between now and then, any random gust of wind can blow trash into the stream. Might be time to start calling up some of the local TV stations to get them to cover this story. It's like the stadium can get away with anything they want and everybody else is afraid to confront them and hold them to what was promised in the EIR. Pathetic!


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## 4Crawler (Jul 13, 2011)

Looks like the SC Valley Water District is making some headway with the stadium to clean up their mess, this reply to my inquiry:

"we are in communication with the stadium management to address this issue of trash escaping to the trail and creek banks. thanks for keeping an eye on this."

I observed increasing trash after each event and even witnessed loose trash blowing out of the concession stands weeks after an event. There are piles of trash stashed into nooks and crannies of those concession stands and all it take is a good gust of wind to kick that loose and off down the trail and into the creek.


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## 4Crawler (Jul 13, 2011)

Apparently some progress to report:



> Your complaint regarding trash in the creek channel along the San Tomas Aquino Creek Trail was forwarded to me. The Levi’s Stadium operations team was advised of the channel condition yesterday and had a crew pick up litter along the creek channel embankments earlier today in response. Please let me know if you have any additional questions or see elevated trash conditions along this section of the trail in the future.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I think it was the Santa Clara Valley Water District that got the stadium to move on this, although hard to tell from this e-mail. I've not been down the trail to see how much trash was removed.

It took dozens of contacts over 4 months involving close to a dozen agencies, the stadium, mayor, city council, city manager, parks department and finally get a reply from someone in Public Works responds. And this all to pick up some trash!!! Hopefully they will keep up with this as they promised in the EIR because 50,000+ fans every event equals an ongoing source of trash. 

And if the stadium operating company were really environmentally concerned as they say they are, why not adopt that stretch of the creek that is heavily impacted by their 50,000+ patrons at each event? That would be in their best interest, and would present a nice clean first impression as fans enter and leave the stadium. Studies have shown that littering is more prevalent when people see existing litter, so keeping the creek and trail clean would encourage stadium patrons to not litter.

I had also posted on the stadium FB page in relation to their recent post about how "green" the stadium is with a couple of solar panels, etc. I simply asked that in light of their environmental stance, what were they planning to do with the growing amount of trash blowing into the creek? 

They could have responded with "Thank you for bringing this issue to our attention. We have sent out a crew to clean up the trash and will make sure this doesn't happen in the future". But no, they delete my posts! Real class act there!!!


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## 4Crawler (Jul 13, 2011)

So much for thinking Levi Stadium was going to clean up their act. 

What a bunch of slobs that run that place!!!

Rode the trail last night and while there is slightly less trash than before, its in no way cleaned up. So either they lied about cleaning up the trash last week or some much litter is getting dumped by even a small, private event, that it builds up in less than a week. I saw open bags of trash stashed behind the concession stands. Anyone who is familiar with that part of the trail knows its windy there. Wind + open bags of loose trash = trash blowing south along the trail and off into the creek. I saw loose paper blowing in the wind. There are paper drink cups in the Levi Stadium color scheme, paper signs and other debris with Levi Stadium logos. Why doesn't the city step in and get these slobs to live up to the promises in the EIR??? They are allowing the stadium exclusive access to the creek trail during events, I would think there should be a clause in the contract to return the trail in clean condition after an event and not piled high with trash! If there is not, whomever negotiated that arrangement with the stadium needs to be fired.

I shot some video of the mess and will be putting it into a video on YouTube. I'll wager the stadium will file a takedown notice on it


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## 4Crawler (Jul 13, 2011)

I managed to convince Stanley Roberts of KRON-TV to come down and film a segment on the trash at the stadium:
https://youtu.be/Taz6o6JMgho?list=LLd6NjtScH2KgiJtH_N33MEg

Maybe the public pressure will push the city and stadium to "clean up their act".


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## 4Crawler (Jul 13, 2011)

Made a presentation at the Santa Clara city council meeting earlier this week. Always hard to say how that goes with the regulations prohibiting any discussion on public comments in meetings. You have 2 mins. to say your piece then sit down and wait to see if the topic is added to an upcoming meeting agenda, that may take months to years to happen if at all. Also re-contacted the Valley Water District to inform them there is more trash than ever in the creek. Wait a minute, shouldn't it be the Water District that's monitoring their creek? 

And for grins, sent a copy of my information to the Earth Justice folks (Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund) to see if they have any interest in stepping in with some legal muscle. <-- No luck, they seem to be as scared of the stadium gang as all the other public agencies:



> While this is not something we would be able to take on at this time, I believe the San Jose local Sierra Club Chapter is involved. Thank you for reaching out!


And I see no mention of the stadium on the Loma Prieta chapter web site, so I think they are not terribly involved.


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## 4Crawler (Jul 13, 2011)

I started putting some of my videos together on YouTube plus the one from KRON-TV:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpY2FP1a9tiuBGnZP9UkrRBAPsPg1L4rP

Share the video/playlist link with anyone who might be interested. Maybe we can drum up some social media pressure to get these slobs to clean up their act.


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