Two workshops were all the Santa Clara Water District staff needed to prepare a draft for cleaning up Almaden Lake. The last workshop, held on Feb. 20, included an explanation of the differences between the two latest alternatives to key leaders of neighborhood and homeowner association groups in the area.
Comments from both workshops will be part of the draft for an open meeting in late March or early April when the project team conducts outreach to the public, says Rechelle Blank, acting unit manager for capital watershed projects.
“I walked them through both of the alternatives, explaining there would be grass in places that sand is in now or that we’d made the islands three-quarters of an acre instead of a full acre each,” said Blank.
The two proposals differ from the original five alternatives, but appear to be the most feasible to bring the lake up to the State Water Resource Board’s San Francisco Basin’s regional quality standards. They were presented last fall by the Sierra Club and the Audubon Society.
The ideas are fairly similar and will leave the lake mostly intact and separate from the creek. Both also would fill the lake to a depth of 28 feet from its current 35 feet and reshape the bottom. One alternative would reduce the boating location slightly allowing a small amount of additional water for the lake. Both would eliminate swimming.
“Attendees were receptive of our presentation. Most were in agreement with what we’ve devised and there were few questions,” says Blank.
One of the questions concerned swimming, but Blank said neither alternative offers swimming. It’s definitely not feasible for the city to manage swimming, Blank quoted Dave Mitchell saying. Mitchell is parks planning manager for San Jose’s Parks, Recreation and Neighborhood Services.
It’s too early to determine what plants and grasses would be planted, Blank said. Those questions will be answered in the design phase. The levees for the trail will remain the same sizes they are currently, allowing a smooth transition from the trail to the new levees.
The team plans to do the analysis over the summer and share its findings with the board of directors next fall.
The project team hopes to have an alternative chosen to take to the board and to receive board members’ agreement by the end of this year. It must have a design phase and environmental document ready to meet the quality standards by the end of this year in order to have the project ready for construction by 2018. They then have 10 years to implement and show results that meet the regional quality board’s requirements
The new alternatives put the lake on the east side of the property, close to Winfield Boulevard, allowing boating and fishing and adding a new island for birds and rare plants.
It will reduce open space on the western side of the restored creek, near Almaden Expressway down to two acres, which the city of San Jose will maintain and manage. It also will connect the lake to the Alamitos Percolation ponds. However, the flow-through system from the lake to the percolation ponds will eliminate lake swimming.
As well as cutting the depth to 28 feet, the lake bottom will be reshaped and capped with 5 feet of clean fill. Solar bees or algaecide treatments will be used to control algae.
The plan also proposes a 40-foot-wide embankment between the restored creek and the lake with dual uses, as a maintenance road and a walking trail. The team proposes to use grass and natural plants to match the existing landscape.
