San Diego Canyon Trails
The City of San Diego has envisioned an open space network of parks, canyons, river valleys, habitats, beaches, and ocean as a guiding principle for its future. Significant links in that network will grow from the Conservancy’s grant of $150,000 in Proposition 84 funds to the San Diego River Conservancy for planning new trails and improving old ones in canyons that drain to the San Diego River in the heart of the city.

The project will create a system of trails connecting several upland neighborhoods to the San Diego River and across it on a new footbridge. It will also enhance habitat throughout the system. Access will improve to the new Fenton Parkway MTS station, Mission Valley Public Library, San Diego Chargers football stadium, and a park to be constructed nearby. Eventually the network will link to riverside trails running to Ocean Beach and the California Coastal Trail. Although it is in an urban area, this stretch of the river has a lush band of willows with a canopy of mature trees where the endangered least Bell’s vireo nests.

Full Access to Wave Organ
The Exploratorium will improve access to the Wave Organ, a unique acoustic sculpture at the end of a jetty in the San Francisco Marina Yacht Harbor, using $204,000 in Proposition 84 funds approved by the Conservancy. Built of stone and marble from a Gold Rush-era cemetery, the Wave Organ offers great views of the downtown skyline, the Bay, the Marina waterfront, and the Golden Gate Bridge. It invites visitors to sit on a stone bench, place their ears against the ends of PVC or concrete pipes, and listen to waves slosh and gurgle at the pipes’ other end. That experience has not been available, however, to people who cannot navigate stone steps. The Exploratorium, an interactive science museum, installed the sculpture in 1986. It will now replace the stairs with a ramp and improve the 720-foot access path that leads from the parking lot to the Wave Organ.

Suisun Creek Restoration
In Napa and Solano Counties, the California Land Stewardship Institute will use up to $350,000 in Proposition 84 funds approved by the Conservancy for three habitat improvement projects in the Suisun Creek watershed, with steelhead in mind. This 53-square-mile watershed is almost entirely agricultural, and in some places grazing and crop cultivation have stripped stream banks of plants that used to shade the water, lowering its temperature and helping to maintain flow in hot weather. For the past decade, conservation advocates and landowners have been working together to restore the stream corridor and prevent further disturbance.

On White Creek, a tributary of Wooden Valley Creek, a denuded 100-yard stretch that has been a steelhead spawning ground will be fenced off and planted with natives. On Wooden Valley Creek, which flows into Suisun Creek, plans will be made to remove a collapsed concrete stream crossing that blocks fish passage and replace it with a small bridge. Most of the funds will go toward removing the alien giant reed Arundo donax from a two- to five-mile stretch of Suisun Creek, and planting natives.

Coastal Prairie Study
Less than 10 percent of native coastal prairie habitat remains from Big Sur to the Oregon coast. With $639,000 of Proposition 50 funds approved by the Conservancy, Ocean Song Farm and Wilderness Center will develop a coastal prairie habitat enhancement feasibility study to map coastal prairie resources, find techniques to counter invasive species, and coordinate communication on regional coastal prairie protection efforts. Ocean Song will map and classify resources on 100,000 acres in Marin and Sonoma counties, study methods for treating velvet grass (Holcus lanatus) infestation, prepare volunteer training materials, and undertake other tasks to help efforts to conserve this drastically diminished habitat. The two organizations will have support from the Sonoma County Agricultural Preservation and Open Space District and the U.C. Davis Bodega Marine Laboratory and Reserve.