Strawberry Creek-- TGIF Grant for Sustainable Water Infrastructure Campus Tours

The tour will feature new sustainable in-frastructure around campus, such as Boalt Hall’s unique rainwater harvest-ing system. In using rainwater, harmful polluntants found in potable water are reduced and do not threaten the creek.

Public outreach will shed light on seeming-ly ordinary spaces around campus, such as the Wellman Parking Lot. At first glance, this may look like a regular parking lot, but the Wellman Parking Lot is specially designed to catch storm water and remove pollutants.

Older, yet still successful infra-structure created at the start of Strawberry Creek’s restoration will also be highlighted. Such as the Redwood Cribwall, which provides an effective solution to bank stabilization and protec-tion, while also providing hab-itat for native plant and animal species.

Another feature that will be included is the variety of sustainable bike park-ing around campus that are packed with mulch, soil, bark chips or oth-er materials that allow water to trickle through into the ground, rather than running over the surface.

A major goal of this project is to bring attention to sustain-able landscaping around the campus, such as this seasonal storm water detention pond in front of the VLSB. This pond is the last piece in a full bio-filtra-tion system that prevents runoff from moving into the creek un-treated.

This TGIf Grant goes toward cre-ating a self-guided walking tour of Strawberry Creek that highlights sustainable water infrastructure on the UC Berkeley Campus. The brochure will include new mate-rial about water infrastructure on campus, innovative design features that treat and/or detain runoff, and campus ecological restoration projects that maintain creek water quality as well as provide habitat for native plants and animals. The new tour will be available online on the Strawberry Creek website (strawberrycreek.berkeley.edu). Tim Pine, an Environmental Spe-cialist for UCB’s Office of Environ-ment and Safety will also publish the material in a printed booklet that will be available in the Berke-ley Water Center, for class use,and for campus tours.

Lesser-known “greening projects” such as the roof garden on top of the Li Ka Shing building will also be covered on the tour, representing UC Berkeley as a leader in sustainable technology.

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Nicole Kush and Sasha Harris-Lovett

Strawberry Creek provides an excellent outdoor classroom for teaching and learning about natural systems in urban water infrastructure. This newly established publication will add to the already ex-isting materials on the creek such as those seen to the right, increasing the transparency of knowl-edge about the creek to the wider public.

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