Please find the Friends of Rose Creek draft comments to the Water Quality Improvement Plan (WQIP)  for Mission Bay including the Rose Creek Watershed at draft comments in PDF format.

The most important action you can take is to give the City of San Diego all the suggestions you can. Don’t assume they have thought of everything. Even if you do not have time to read the draft WQIP documents, you can email your suggestions on any of the following topics:

For those planning on making comments, we have some general suggestions:

1) One of the issues identified with the WQIP is the lack of useful data.  Due to limited resources the City of San Diego has not in the past monitored water quality conditions effectively. The draft WQIP includes many of the limitations of the available data.  WE NEED TO GET GOOD DATA. Rose Creek is on the 303(d) state list of impaired waterways, yet Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs) of pollutants have not yet been identified.  We need to suggest as many creative ways as possible for water quality to be monitored. This would include partnering with non-profits, obtaining student interns, and engaging local businesses to provide funding and/or human resources to do the monitoring.  What grants could the City apply for to fund adequate water monitoring programs?  Please put your creative thinking hat on and make the suggestions. Without a significantly ramped up monitoring program, we will not see significant water quality change.

2) Suggestions for how to and where to “daylight” creeks (click here for background information). Cudahy Creek is one suggestion – there may be others.

3)  Include photos and/or videos of conditions that we want to achieve or areas that are significantly degraded. If you have photos of degraded creeks, send them in with as much information as you can provide (date/time, locations, etc.)

4) Many of the suggestions in the documents include green streets, bioswales, etc. Please recommend that no plastics be used in any green infrastructure project as the plastic will degrade over time, leach into the surface water and end up in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

5) The documents references “increased channel clearing” as a water quality solution. Please oppose this strategy as it means removing native and non-native vegetation that provides habitat for birds and other creatures. Instead, suggest that the City partner with non-profits, volunteer groups, write grants and whatever else you can think of to remove non-native plants and restore habitat.

6) Water quality improvement strategies should only be limited by your imagination. Anything that you can think of to suggest such as public outreach campaigns, signage, frequent trash pickups, etc. can be emailed as comments. No need to even read the documents.  Do a Google search and find out what WQIP strategies other areas are implementing and use them as suggestions.

7) Provide suggestions on how to educate the public about pesticide, herbicide, and chemical fertilizer use.

8) If you are anyone you know has specific restoration projects they have been wanting to get done, send them in as potential projects.  The important thing is to get them on the list. Put in as much detail as you have now. Don’t forget to include long term maintenance requirements.

9) Suggest that the City of San Diego and the co-permittees work with other jurisdictional agencies and/or non-governmental agencies in the watershed. Some examples include the US Marine Corps (Miramir), State of California (UCSD and CalTrans), County of San Diego, University of San Diego, etc. etc. List all the players in the area that you are concerned about and ask for an inter-agency water quality working team to be created. Add in any suggestions you may have as to how this may function.

10) Rose Creek, San Clemente Creek, and Tecolote Creek are “receiving waters” under the MS4 permit (the permit that allows the City to allow storm water to enter Mission Bay and the Pacific Ocean). If you haven’t read the MS4, it’s on-line for your reading pleasure.

11) Think of strategies for prevent rain from running off our streets and into our creeks and send them in.

12) Think of places were concrete might be removed from our creeks and suggest returning the creek to a more natural flow.

13) Take photos of erosion caused by storm water run-off from surface streets and send them in along with an identifying location.

14) Ask that the City of San Diego Storm Water and Transportation Department hire someone to engage with the community, attend meetings, as serve as a liaison between the public and the City.

15) One of the goals of the new MS4 permit is to give everyone a voice in the WQIP process.  What strategies can you think of to make water quality outreach and communication between the City and the public more functional?  Send them in.

16) Do you have any data on water quality conditions of waters flowing into Mission Bay?  If so, send them in as additional data.  Data can be photos, logged observations, videos of creeks during storms, etc. Please provide as much detail as possible.

17) If you are familiar with the plans for dredging Mission Bay Park, please comment on how this may impact water quality.

18) If you have any creative thoughts on dealing with encampments in our canyons and along our creeks, please send them in as suggestions. The City has said they cannot deal with homeless encampments. Please comment on this. Past suggestions have included porta potties, trash bins, etc. People go to the bathroom along our creeks and that washes into our creeks, Mission Bay, and our ocean.

19) Come up with ideas for how to deal with dog poop and send them in. I don’t want to swim in dog poop, do you?

20) Please ask the City to come up with a process to tackled degraded water conditions. The plan is to identify one degraded area, re-mediate it based on your suggestions; then find the next degraded area until all our water is in good condition. Please offer suggestions on how the City might do this.

Comments are due by 5:00 p.m. on June 13. To review the documents we are commenting on, click here.

To just write up your comments and email them no later than 5:00 p.m. on Friday, June 13, and email to Wayne Chiu.

If you have questions, please email us  and we’ll do our best to respond in a timely fashion.

 

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