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The July Digest
Invisible History: Lost Creeks of the East Bay + The Story of Wholly H2O w/ Dr. Elizabeth Dougherty
Volume 105 | July 2023 | By Meghan Boyle
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Join Dr. Elizabeth Dougherty for a discussion about Richmond, CA watersheds, the SF Bay Delta, and the power of community science in connecting with waterhoods.
Hosted by Speaking Up For Point Molate
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Join Speaking Up for Point Molate for a lively discussion of watersheds, near and far, large and small - all connected to Richmond, CA residents and how they relate to their ecosystems. What do you know about the watersheds supplying water, conveying the water and/or the watersheds in which you live and work? Who lives there? What are they doing there? And what are your actions' impacts on them?
When: Monday, July 10th
Time: 6-7pm
Where: Virtual/Zoom
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The Lost Creeks of the East Bay | |
Exploring the hidden history of East Bay waterways | |
If you live in the East Bay, chances are you’re somewhere close to a creek. And odds are, you can’t even see it. The Bay Area’s hidden hydrologic history is right under our feet — literally — and its story runs pretty deep. Unfortunately, much of our knowledge about the Bay’s natural waterways have been lost as we’ve industrialized and developed the land, burying our history along with the creeks. So, how did this all happen? | |
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Before European settlers made contact with Bay Area land, the region had a myriad of fresh, flowing creeks and rivers. These creeks were (and still are) part of the Bay’s larger watershed system, which housed rich biodiversity including oaks, fish, and a plethora of insect and bird species. As the Europeans began streaming in, they started developing the land, building over the creeks’ natural floodplains. (For a refresher on floodplains and their importance, check out paragraph 8 of the January newsletter).
This was only the start of a long journey of the burying, culverting, and eventually, forgetting of these creeks.
For a while, new settlers in the East Bay lived alongside these creeks, and they actually were popular destinations to take an afternoon stroll or relax by. They were also used as areas to keep livestock as well.
However, this harmony was pretty short-lived.
As development increased, the creeks started becoming a problem during years with heavy rains. Because people built on floodplains, when the creeks would overflow and swell with rainwater, the inundations destroyed existing construction and landscaping. This caused people to view the creeks as impediments to the creation of the Bay Area’s burgeoning cities, and they began filling sections of the creeks in with sand and debris in an attempt to curb the flooding.
As urbanization spread into the 20th century, many of the creeks became synonymous with poverty and illegal activity. Instead of clear, flowing water, urban debris built up in the creek beds. They became sites of heavy drug-use, and even sewage and pollution. The once necessary human-creek connection was lost, and the East Bay’s creeks were deemed unsafe and were largely avoided.
After exceptional flooding occurred in 1962, East Bay officials launched efforts to bury the creeks by culverting them underground. These burying efforts continued throughout the 60s and 70s until most of the East Bay's were virtually invisible. Along with the disappearance of these creeks came the loss of knowledge about the region’s waterways and watersheds which is still affecting us to this day.
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Map of old Bay Area creeks / Elizabeth Dougherty | |
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The erasure of the East Bay’s creeks has led to the painful forgetting of our own history. We are now more disconnected from water than we’ve ever been, and it’s hurting both us and the planet. We see this all the time with extreme droughts, overuse of water, widespread habitat loss, pollution, and more. Humans have single-handedly changed the East Bay’s landscape, shifting it from a vibrantly lush wetland ecosystem to an urban metropolis with invisible creeks.
And this isn’t to say that the Bay Area isn’t still a beautiful, exciting place to visit or live in, but without understanding where our water comes from and appreciating the waterways around us, we are more prone to overusing and wasting water, as well as neglecting to care for our local ecosystems.
This means that it is vital to connect to your local watershed and learn about the creeks around you. Through building relationships with your water and embracing the natural life around you, you can take the crucial step forward toward creating a more water-friendly world.
If you want a head start on building a relationship with your creeks, be sure to sign up for our Frog Park Walking Tour this July!
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"Get in sync with the cycle!": A Conversation with Wholly H2O Director, Dr. Elizabeth Dougherty | |
Discovering Wholly H2O's history and the importance of watershed connection | |
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Speaking of taking steps to create a more water-friendly world, it can feel pretty daunting to figure out where to start. How does connecting with your watershed actually work? What does it matter in the first place? Why is Wholly H2O even doing this work at all? To explore the importance of building relationships with your water and how we got our start in this work, we spoke with Wholly H2O’s very own Director, Dr. Elizabeth Dougherty.
“Running Wholly H2O is a spiritual practice for me,” Dougherty explains when discussing her motivation behind starting the non-profit. “My goal has been to remember what we have forgotten. In connecting with watersheds, and with the species in those watersheds, it is an opportunity to connect to everything we are viscerally as a species.”
As such, much of Wholly H2O’s current work revolves around bringing people into their watersheds and allowing them the opportunity to explore the natural world around them. But it wasn’t always this way.
A little over a decade ago, after taking time off from her job at a California energy efficiency campaign, Dougherty found herself wanting to head in a different direction.
“[I went] to Peru to work on a disaster relief project in a town called Pisco,” she begins as she details the story of how Wholly H2O got its start. In Pisco, Dougherty worked with several groups helping restore the town after it had been hit by a major earthquake. Here, she got her first taste of water reuse.
“I thought: if we’re going to rebuild a whole town’s infrastructure, wouldn’t it make sense to try to implement some sustainability tactics?” she explains. “Through that, I started to get into compost toilets and [met with] groups coming to Peru to build them as a way to create a more sustainable rebuild of the area. That was my first in on water reuse.” (Dougherty explains that the idea behind compost toilets is to prevent people from using the large amounts of water that they normally would through flushing).
Alright, so how did we get from compost toilets to watershed conservation?
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Wholly H2O's first informational poster / Twitter / Wholly H2O | |
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“I decided I would go to the Sacred Valley, another area of Peru… and I met a guy who was doing water filtration up in the Andes and I said, ‘I’d love to volunteer with you for a few days.’” As Dougherty helped create these water filtration systems, she began to develop an interest in water conservation.
After returning to the United States, she took a rainwater harvesting class and was eventually asked by the organizers of the class, the American Rainwater Catchment Systems Association, to open a chapter of the non-profit in the Bay Area (then the largest population of rainwater adopters).
“I said ‘Sure! Why not?’ since at the time, I was…working in sustainability in other ways and… doing speaker forums, so it was just a matter of moving that into water,” Dougherty recounts. From this, Wholly H2O was born!
“I started Wholly H2O [in 2008], with, crucially, the help of Rosey Jencks and Sarah Minick from the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, and Dan Carney who ran the conservation department at Marin Municipal Water District,” she says, crediting the people at various water districts who helped her with the non-profit’s creation.
But Wholly H2O still wasn’t focused on watershed conservation (yet). For the first four years of Wholly H2O’s existence, Dougherty was helping organize private forums and events highlighting the importance of water reuse, greywater systems, and rainwater harvesting. It wasn’t until the mid-2010s when Wholly H2O began to shift its attention to watersheds.
“We got hired by The Watershed Project…to help them distribute rainwater harvesting cisterns… and do outreach work,” Dougherty continues. While helping The Watershed Project hand out these cisterns, Dougherty shares that she had the idea of setting up a display showing people where their water actually comes from.
“So, we’re standing on a street corner with [the display], and we’re telling people about rainwater and about where their water comes from… and I had people hugging me and crying and saying, ‘Oh my gosh, I had no idea! I’m so glad you told us this!' And within 2-3 weeks, all of the [cisterns] were gone.”
This marked a key turning point in Wholly H2O’s shift towards community work and the start of its emphasis on watershed conservation.
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Moved by the profound emotional responses she experienced while engaging with the local community, Dougherty wanted to incorporate more outreach work into Wholly H2O’s agenda.
As the years went on and Wholly H2O became more involved in various art projects and community science and rainwater conservation became more well-known, Dougherty’s main focus finally shifted towards educating Bay Area citizens about the watersheds they live in and the importance of staying connected to them.
“One thing I’ve always wanted to do with Wholly H2O is fill in the gaps, and at that point I thought: there’s so many great people doing [conservation work]... but nobody’s connecting watersheds to ecosystems to get people to really understand where they’re living.”
And now, Wholly H2O is doing just that.
Through our Walking Waterhood Tours and various events and activities, Wholly H2O is leading the crucial work of getting people in touch with their watersheds and the ecosystems in the Bay Area. And what makes this work so crucial is the real impact it has on people. Wholly H2O's work helps citizens truly understand why things like water conservation or ecosystem caretaking are so important, effectively convincing people to adopt more eco-friendly habits that benefit the environment as much as they benefit ourselves.
“It is my firm belief that… we used to understand natural cycles a lot better and participate in them more. We have really gotten lost in terms of these natural cycles — for example, the soil cycle, the carbon cycle, the water cycle,” Dougherty asserts. In terms of the water cycle specifically, she states, “We are taking the water cycle out of its natural state. We’re piping water… we buried all the creeks, we’ve covered the ground with cement so all the water that would naturally infiltrate it is now running into storm drains…it’s just an issue.”
Despite the grim reality of how we’ve treated our water and messed with the natural water cycle, we can still change our outlook on water and take measures to repair some of the damage done.
“Learn enough to get in sync with the cycle. [We need] to become more reconnected, not just intellectually, but emotionally,” Dougherty urges. “Climate change is driving us there… because people are terrified and they’re having an emotional connection with that terror.”
To shift your mindset away from the fear of climate change into a one that focuses on what you can do to make a difference, Dougherty advises, “Take advantage of the small moments to instruct your children or even yourself, whether that’s at a Wholly H2O event or if you’re just standing under a tree for ten minutes... do something to connect yourself to your ecosystem. Then do the same thing again tomorrow. Build it as a practice. It can even be a spiritual practice.”
Whether you view connecting with your ecosystem as a spiritual endeavor like Dougherty, or you are simply looking to build your relationship with the environment, besides making a habit of appreciating and educating yourself about the natural world around you, it is also vital to know what watershed you live in and then make it a goal to explore and learn more about it. To discover your watershed, check out this interactive Alameda County Watershed Map from the Alameda County Resource Conservation District to explore most of the East Bay’s watersheds. If your city isn’t on the map, you can also search online for watershed and historic creek maps of your area.
“Find out which watershed you live in… and then learn some history about it. Be thankful. Express gratitude. And even apologize for what we’ve done. That is part of having an emotional connection — having that kind of compassion for your ecosystem…. Overall, try to learn what it means to live in balance with your particular ecosystem,” Dougherty says. “And of course, you can always go to every Wholly H2O event you can!”
For more information on our exciting watershed and ecosystem tours, check out this link.
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Our lives depend on healthy watersheds, and Wholly H2O depends on YOU! | |
Our important (and fun) work takes cash, plain and simple. Will you help us keep our events and yours coming? Please use the link below to flow some cash in our direction! | |
What else are we up to? Wholly H2O regularly plans exciting environmental events throughout the year, including beach cleanups, walking tours, art projects, and nature observations (aka BioBlitzes). To view our future events, click the link here, or use the button below. If you'd like to stay tuned and get notifications about our events, feel free to use that same link to follow us on EventBrite!
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Want to Give Back to Your Watershed? Join our Board of Advisors! | |
During the last 100 years, California has been in on-and off drought conditions. We also have one of the five most important delta systems in the world, yet, most Californians do not know where their water comes from, how much they use a day, or what watershed they live in. At Wholly H2O, we are creating deep connections with watershed ecosystems in order to inspire people to take long-range personal and political action, while still having fun. And our Board of Advisors is a crucial part of how Wholly H2O functions. We ask for a solid commitment to:
- Join a 1.5 hour board meeting every four months.
- Put the word out about at least 3 Wholly H2O events a year
- Attend at least 3 Wholly H2O events per year
- Assist us in making connections for program content, partners, funding, and growth.
We're looking for experts in Bay Area creek and marine ecosystems, East Bay BIPOC history, citizen science, curriculum development, East Bay K-12 schools, art, marketing, or outreach. If this sounds like something you'd be interested in, apply using this link. Also, be sure to check out our current Board of Advisors to learn more about our current members!
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Wholly H2O couldn't run without the work of our talented volunteers. We have a bunch of unique opportunities throughout the year, such as podcast producing, accounting, and content editing! Take a look at our Volunteer Match to learn more!
We are especially interested in these two roles:
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Our Interns Do Really Cool Stuff. | | |
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We always have a pod of 10-15 interns researching creek histories, creating wildlife guides, editing livestreams, writing copies for our watershed tours, and more. We promise you will never be bored - lend your skills or add your curiosity to our work!
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Wholly H2O catalyzes dynamic, informed connections between people and their watersheds that yield proactive and appropriate water management through conservation and reuse. Our watershed-positive educational programs engage Californians in community , citizen science, art, and green infrastructure education.
Our activities: waterhood tours, BioBlitzes, Moth nights, and art events are bringing waterhoods to life for hundreds of water-users around the San Francisco Bay area! Join us for an event, follow us on social media, volunteer or intern, or donate to support our fun and innovative work. (We also love matched donations from your workplace!)
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