Where does the name "Baxter" come from?
Ohlone Indians of the Huchiun clan who lived on the banks of Baxter Creek probably gave the creek its first name. Because no records of this name exist, Friends of Baxter Creek identified the creek by studying a map, created by creek historian Alan LaPointe, in the possession of the Urban Creeks Council, Berkeley. No one knows the origin of the name "Baxter," but it’s believed to belong to a family that owned land in the area that's now El Cerrito and Richmond.

Through the years, Baxter Creek has also been referred to as "Bishop Creek" and "Stege Creek," after 19th-century Rancho San Pablo landowners Thomas Bishop and Richard Stege. Bishop’s use of the land around Baxter Creek for grazing dairy cattle undoubtedly had a destructive effect on the creek, with the cattle trampling the creek’s banks and denuding them of vegetation.

Why do you call Baxter Creek a "creek"? It looks like a ditch to me!
In the midst of every environmental battle, an argument over the value of a natural resource is raised to justify its destruction. In the late 1980s, many who wished to profit from commercial development of the property south of Albertson's and Angelo’s Delicatessen began referring to Baxter Creek as a "ditch," a "drainage course," or a "drainage facility" to devalue its status as a precious environmental resource.

Although the creek was altered at some point in its history (by 19th-century cattle grazing and 20th-century dredging, straightening, and re-routing to accommodate storm-drain culverts), the same alterations were made to most creeks in the Bay Area to make way for the construction of homes and businesses. This fact alone cannot justify calling the creek a ditch and burying it underground at one of the only sites where it remains above ground.

Creek-restoration experts have interpreted 1894 and 1899 maps of the area and found a creek running in three branches from the hills to the bay. The creek flows rapidly down the steep East Bay hills and meanders more slowly when it reaches the flatter terrain south of Albertson's. In 1997, creek-restoration expert Ann L. Riley classified the branch south of Albertson's as an E-6 type stream under the Rosgen Stream Classification System.

Director of the Waterways Restoration Institute in Berkeley, Dr. Riley is a fluvial geomorphologist with a doctorate in hydrology from UC Berkeley. According to her book, Restoring Streams in Cities: A Guide for Planners, Policy Makers, and Citizens (Island Press 1998), E-type streams generally occur in alluvial valleys that exhibit low elevational relief, like the flat stretches south of Albertson's and Angelo’s Delicatessen. Although these types of streams are highly stable systems, they are sensitive to disturbance and can be rapidly adjusted and converted to other stream types in relatively short periods.

Whether or not some people consider this watercourse to be an unsightly ditch that was dug to drain a marsh, Baxter Creek is still protected as a wetland by the California Department of Fish and Game. This fact alone, however, may not be enough to prevent the cities of El Cerrito and Richmond from consigning the creek to a concrete culvert.

When deciding whether to allow a wetland to be culverted, the Department of Fish and Game considers many factors—the most significant of which is the value placed on the wetland by the local community. Developers have referred to Baxter Creek as a "ditch" to convince residents that nothing will be lost if it is buried underground. The Friends of Baxter Creek have insisted on calling it a "creek" to emphasize its value as a social and natural resource.

Whatever it’s called, this waterway is much more valuable to the community as an amenity than it will ever be underground. Instead of sacrificing one of the remaining creeks in El Cerrito and Richmond, it makes more sense to enhance Baxter Creek as an attractive feature to draw shoppers into a new business district, a recreational resource for residents, and an educational laboratory for students of all ages. The city of San Luis Obispo is just one of many American cities that have revitalized their downtown areas by focusing on their creeks as natural amenities.

Why do you use the term "creek" to refer to water that flows out of a concrete storm drain?
El Cerrito and Richmond are situated in a region crossed by numerous creeks that flow down from the East Bay hills to the San Francisco Bay. To accommodate rapid growth over the past 60 years, these cities followed now-outmoded engineering assumptions by channelizing their creeks into concrete culverts. Although this approach resulted in the construction of uniform patterns of residential and commercial buildings, it buried underground some of the cities’ most precious natural resources, which provided riparian habitat for wildlife as well as areas of solace for urban residents.

Even though portions of creeks are culverted all over the Bay Area, the streams flowing through these culverts are still part of their original watersheds and are therefore still considered to be creeks. During the last 20 years, research into watershed hydrology and fluvial geomorphology has yielded new alternatives to culverting that are proving to be cost-effective ways for cities to accommodate growth without destroying their creeks.

These alternatives are also creating opportunities for citizens to revitalize their neighborhoods by helping to save and restore the few open creeks that still exist and to daylight others. The City of El Cerrito took a giant leap forward a few years ago when it daylighted the branch of Baxter Creek that flows through Poinsett Park.

Why should I care about saving Baxter Creek? As a resident, I don’t want my taxes raised just to restore a creek.
Baxter Creek can be restored and the El Cerrito/Richmond Gateway can be revitalized without taxpayer subsidy. Because economic resources are in short supply in El Cerrito and Richmond, the Friends of Baxter Creek asked Gary Mason to create three separate designs for the area—at low, moderate, and higher cost. These designs will be presented to the public at a scoping meeting in 2000. The cost implications of each design will be discussed at this event, along with suggestions for meeting those costs.

Each design meets the Friends of Baxter Creek’s three fundamental goals: (1) restoring the creek, (2) extending the Ohlone Greenway along the creek to allow pedestrian and bicyclist access to the area, and (3) improving the quality of life for residents in the area. The moderate- and higher-cost designs also provide opportunities for commercial ventures in the El Cerrito/Richmond Gateway. We hope to interest developers in assuming some of those costs for what could soon become a thriving retail environment around a restored creek.

What’s this "creek restoration" all about? And what’s in it for me?
A linear creekside park and greenway south of Albertson's, extending to the west side of San Pablo Avenue, will create a graceful gateway from one city to the next, enhance the residential and commercial viability of the area, and provide the following benefits:

• Other rail-to-trail projects, such as the Lafayette-Moraga Trail in eastern Contra Costa County, have proven to be economically beneficial to the community by attracting shoppers and providing commercial opportunities for new restaurants, bicycle shops, and sporting goods stores.
• Studies have shown that residential property values increase with proximity to restored creeks. In a 1995 study to measure the economic benefits of California’s Urban Stream Restoration program in Contra Costa, Solano, and Santa Cruz Counties, a positive correlation was found between an increase in property values and the number of lineal feet of nearby restored creek. Property values increase even more when trails and educational signs accompany the restoration project, as they would at the El Cerrito/Richmond Gateway. The added property tax to the community will contribute far more revenue to El Cerrito and Richmond than the project will cost these cities.
• When compared to the reasonable costs of creek restoration, the cost of culverting creeks is great. Creek restoration costs only $100 per foot (including labor, material, plantings, and maintenance), while standard 30-inch reinforced concrete pipe for creek culverting costs at least $110 per foot (not including the costs of installing, maintaining, and repairing the pipe).

• Buildings over culverts often sink, culverts can collapse, and culverted creeks may contribute to flooding downstream by increasing flows and decreasing permeable soil surfaces.
• Now that FEMA is increasingly unwilling to bail out neighborhoods affected by unwise development decisions, developers can hardly be expected to pay for the ensuing damage. Instead, taxpayers wind up paying for these mistakes, as they did when the culvert beneath Berkeley City Hall collapsed, causing thousands of dollars in damage and requiring expensive renovation.
• It makes no sense to spend time and money to uncover the branch of Baxter Creek recently daylighted in Poinsett Park and then destroy this downstream branch, which has never flooded in its present location, by burying it underground.

• The process of developing and maintaining the greenway will bring the community together as formerly segregated people of diverse backgrounds work together to accomplish a shared vision.
• Children, who are more creative and content at play in natural settings than fabricated playgrounds, will be able to experience nature near their homes.
• Traffic congestion will be relieved as more residents use the trail to reach BART, schools, libraries, and shopping districts.
• When regularly used by pedestrians and bicyclists, a lighted greenway will discourage criminal activities such as drug dealing, theft, and illegal dumping.

See "before" and "after" views of the Richmond Greenway as it might continue through the Interstate-80 overpass just south of Angelo’s Delicatessen.