Welcome

Aquatic Park EGRET is the stewardship group for the tidal wetlands of Berkeley’s largest city park. Volunteers from the community help us tend native coastal plantings to improve the shoreline of San Francisco Bay for wildlife habitat.

We’re upgrading our web site for 2009. Hope you like the improvements.

Wonderful bird photo album

Obie Gilkerson, a friend of EGRET and photographer extraordinare, has posted an album of photos of birds at Aquatic Park. View it here: http://obiegilkerson.zenfolio.com/p795881642. Click the “Slideshow” button to view all the photos as a slideshow.

Earth Team and Berkeley HS students celebrate Cesar Chavez day

18 “Berkeley Project Month – Greener Berkeley!” volunteers help out.

Eighteen students from UC Berkeley, as part of “Berkeley Project Month – Greener Berkeley!”, spread the wood chips from three piles of mulch around the bases of several shoreline cypress trees planted two years ago by second graders from Rosa Parks Elementary School. After lunch they did trail improvement work, mounding the soil to create a wildlife overlook for park visitors.

Black Pine Circle kids do their part watering and bird watching

Twelve very young students at Black Pine Circle came to the park with their parents on March 13th. They had a great time watching the egrets and herons while they watered the newly planted shoreline trees and cleared a visitor trail along the south side of Middle Pond.

Head-Royce students volunteer to help protect native plants.

Seventh graders from Head-Royce School worked along the southwestern shoreline of the Main Lagoon on March 6th. The twenty-five students, and the teachers and parents who accompanied them, protected the Monterey Cypress at that corner, as well as adjacent native shrubs, by covering the thistles and other invasive weeds with the wood chips from two enormous piles.

USA Service Clean-Up a great success

Over 90 people showed up to help clean and landscape on January 18th.

Photos can be seen here: http://web.mac.com/hoohaus/iWeb/Site/AquaParkCleanUp-PHOTOS.html

Bird watching at Aquatic Park

As a major stop on the Pacific Flyway, Berkeley’s Aquatic Park hosts many migratory birds stopping on their way south. This category will be used to post announcements of migratory birds seen in the park.

Update on wasteful and potential harmful dredging, July 2008

The City of Berkeley is requesting a “Negative Declaration” of environmental impact of a major dredging project. Read details here.

Help stop flooding and habitat damage to Aquatic Park

The City of Berkeley plans to use $2 million in Clean Water Bond money from the State Coastal Conservancy to open discharge outlets from the City’s primary storm drains into the tidal bay ponds of Aquatic Park. Discharge of contaminated storm water into the enclosed ponds has been prohibited by the State since 1971, but the City hopes to overturn that restriction and replace it with a permit allowing such toxic discharges in perpetuity. The use of high-pressure pumps can increase the capacity of the City’s drains and avoid violations of the Water Board’s prohibition. Improving circulation within the lagoon system must begin with regular maintenance of the existing culverts, the option selected by Council in 1994 when staff first proposed the project in an earlier version. Additional water circulation can be safely engineered with a one-way flow out of the lagoons, thus prohibiting the introductions of toxic storm runoff. Such one-way outbound options have been recommended for consideration by the State Water Board regulator in his project analysis, but they have not yet been modeled.

More information and how you can help.