In February 2004, more than 100 volunteers headed out to the area of the Iron Horse Trail immediately in back of San Ramon Valley High School. Their goal was to put down mulch and replace non-native plants with native plants in the areas next to the trail. They were participating in a pilot program spearheaded by LifeGarden, a nonprofit group headquartered in Walnut Creek that promotes environmental education and health land use ideas.
The pilot program is being run in conjunction with Contra Costa County, which manages the land on either side of the Iron Horse Trail, and the East Bay Regional Park District, which manages the trail itself. The aim of the pilot project is to see if the Iron Horse Corridor could become an eco-friendly linear parkway.
LifeGarden also wants to demonstrate how the use of mulch and native plants could keep down maintenance costs while helping the environment, saying that if the County used mulch, it would not need to spray pesticides or mow the grass.
From February 2004 through to December 2004, LifeGarden was able to organize four projects on the Iron Horse Trail but the last one hit a snag.
The permit LifeGarden had with the County and the park district specified that the group could only have 30-50 volunteers at a time. On the day of their last project, 125 volunteers came out.
“There were concerns about how the mulch was being delivered, where it was being dropped, and the number of volunteers had gotten larger than initially planned,” said John Greitzer of the Contra Costa County Community Development Department.
LifeGarden volunteers alleged that the county did not come out on the day of the last project because of a lack of funds, which was also a violation of their permit. LifeGarden eventually received a letter from the county and the park district informing the group that the pilot program was to be stopped. The letter listed the county and park district’s concerns with the project.
On June 8, at the meeting of the Ironhorse Corridor Advisory Committee, LifeGarden will get a chance to revive its cause and speak to the County and park district’s concerns.
In addition to the LifeGarden restoration project, the committee will discuss the financial plan for managing the Iron Horse Corridor, said Greitzer. The meeting is open to the public. It will start at 4:30 p.m. and is being held at the mobile home clubhouse at Brookview, 1201 Monument Blvd. in Concord. For more information, call 335-1201.
