Friends of Willow Creek, in Sausalito, is celebrating 13 years of stewardship and advocacy for “creek daylighting”, which is the conversion of buried pipes that convey former streams to above-ground, vegetated channels. Daylighting creeks is a complex, expensive and uncommon undertaking, as the Friends have learned, and requires patient planning, outreach, and partnership-building over a […]
Before the shoreline was lined with shipyards during World War II, creeks flowed through Sausalito in the North Bay—rare permanent streams in a dry state full of ephemeral ones. The trees that grew up around these creeks lent the city their name: “little willow grove,” or, in Spanish, Sausalito. But the name has long been
In the span of nine days in 2023, a buried perennial creek in Sausalito went from being twice forgotten to having a fighting chance to be reborn into the community. Of the six creeks in the City that have been buried, Willow Creek is the one creek that could be restored from its headwaters to
Friends of Willow Creek worked with Sausalito Beautiful and the City Public Works to replace the fence creek crossing along Bridgeway with a new decorative fence and beautiful sign denoting Willow Creek. The new sign plays a critical role in raising public awareness of this natural resource in the City. This is a landmark accomplishment
This winter the Friends worked extra hard to apply for large private and public grants to make creek restoration on the Willow Creek Academy (WCA) campus a reality. Board member Emily Schmidt was a sponsor for our application to the Lennox Foundation to design a daylighted creek in the upper campus, and remove the non-native
On August 2 the Sausalito Marin City School Board passed a resolution to include $500,000 in funding for drainage improvements and creek restoration in the upcoming bond measure. The Willow Creek Daylighting Project is now officially part of the proposed measure that goes before voters on Tuesday, November 8. The Friends of Willow Creek, Sausalito will raise an additional $2 Million
