From: Steve Luntz
To: dbrooks@oaklandnet.com
Cc: nnadel@oaklandnet.com ; cityochang@oaklandnet.com ; dwan@oaklandnet.com ; lreid@oaklandnet.com ; jquan@oaklandnet.com ; jbrunner@oaklandnet.com ; idelafuente@oaklandnet.com ; officeofthemayor@oaklandnet.com ; friendsof2creeks@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Saturday, December 18, 2004 10:08 AM
Subject: Chimes Creek and Leona Quarry

Councilmember Desley Brooks
Office of the City Council
City Hall
1 Frank Ogawa Plaza
Oakland, CA 94612

December 18, 2004

Dear Ms. Brooks,

I live on Delmont Avenue. Chimes creek runs through our backyard. This year's runoff has eroded the banks of the creek in our yard back far enough to threaten our footbridge. This represents a substantial widening of the creek since last summer. We are well short of our normal seasonal total rainfall, and yet another such erosion event may send the bridge into the creek or put me to the trouble of removing it.

The daylighted section of Chimes Creek supports a great variety of bird,animal, and insect life. Because the creek runs through private property, its biological richness has been little known to the public or to Oakland city administration. Chimes creek residents have a custodial obligation to protect the strip of wildness in our midst. You have a legal responsibility to do the same.

I urge you to consider with the greatest seriousness Mark Brest van Kempen's report on life in the creekbed:

"I did a survey of life in the creek today and found nothing. This includes no snails, no dragonfly larvae and no damselfly larvae. Last year at this time of year I found and documented many of all of the above (I have kept records for the past three years documenting life in the Creek).  Probably larvae and eggs were covered and smothered by the huge amount of silt introduced into the creek by the construction activities."

Please review the photographs at www.chimescreek.info, all of them. They tell a story of failed engineering at Leona Quarry. When I was growing up in Brentwood in the '50s, the green rolling hills to the southeast of Antioch were the pride of our region in natural beauty. I was astounded to see these hills flattened by bulldozers: one to two hundred feet of soil and soft rock leveled to building pads. It is more astounding to see this type of development happening in Oakland, in the midst of both public parkland and ecologically viable hillside housing. It is not too late to limit the damage. Insist on a responsible, thoroughly reviewed drainage plan for Leona Quarry.

Sincerely,

Steve Luntz
3839 Delmont Avenue
Oakland, CA
94605


Cc: Nancy Nadel, Henry Chang, Danny Wan, Larry Reid, Jean Quan, Jane Brunner, Ignacio De La Fuente, Jerry Brown, Friends of Two Creeks