I am a 40-year resident of Marin County and have resided in Novato for the past 30 years. I speak for Friends of the Rush Creek Preserve, a group of over 140 individuals that use and enjoy the Open Space trails along the preserve. I believe that the County can protect the Rush Creek Preserve AND provide services to the homeless that deserve our compassion.
The wetlands of the Rush Creek Preserve improve the water quality of the preserve and connected waters of the north bay. The preserve also provides essential habitat for protected species, including migratory birds protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 (16 U.S.C. 703-712).
The homeless parked illegally along Binford Road have a significant adverse impact on the Rush Creek Preserve, the habitat it provides for protected species and the local community. Shoulders lined with illegally parked vehicles adversely affect public safety as well because they block passage of emergency vehicles when a traffic accident closes the two-lane roadway (so do the earth berms erected by the County). Some of the homeless have deliberately strewn bent nails and screws on the road to impede normal use of the road by the public.
By spilling their human excrement and spreading trash onto the ground or directly into the wetlands, the homeless adversely affect public health and water quality as well. It is clear from the extensive algae blooms growing adjacent to the illegally parked vehicles that they are having a detrimental effect on water quality. Privately organized cleanups by civic minded volunteers have reported retrieving trash that included used adult diapers, tampons and dead fish from the waters.
The homeless have also had an adverse impact on migratory and predatory birds, birds that returned to the preserve after the wetlands were restored at great public and private expense. They now stay away from the shore due to the presence of humans and their trash, and because fewer fish are in the waters near the shore. One must walk ½ mile east before seeing birds in the numbers once seen near the shore. And the blackbirds that once sang in great numbers at the trailhead to the Open Space trail along Rush Creek are no longer present at that location. The same is true of other bird species that once thrived near the shoreline along Binford Road.
That the County permits harm to the wetlands to continue is shameful. Some of those living in illegally parked vehicles have ample means to live elsewhere, like the owners of a fully restored Chevy Nova, nice boats, and jet skis parked on the shoulders. One resident even set up a shop complete with unconfined industrial waste such as spent oil.
It includes those living in nice RVs with ample means to park them legally at a nearby campsite designed for them and available for a small daily fee. It also includes felons, drug users, and drug dealers. Those homeless are there by choice. They are grifters living off the generosity of Marin residents at the expense of the homeless that deserve our compassion.
The County is too eager to garner state and federal funds to provide services to the homeless without addressing its root causes. Their approach is all carrot and no stick. Officials from other counties and cities direct their homeless to Binford Road. They must snicker at the gullibility and incompetence of Marin County officials.
By providing services, placing porta-potties and erecting earth berms on the shoulders, the County has created a project under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). As a result, the County is required to evaluate the adverse impact of its project on protected resources and to establish mitigation measures that reduce those impacts to levels less than significant. If the latter cannot be achieved the County must consider alternative locations to providing services to those homeless. No exclusions apply; the County must comply with CEQA.
As pointed out by numerous citizens during public comment at Board of Supervisor Meetings, there are far more suitable locations where services can be provided that have far fewer adverse impacts. Suggestions include the vast parking lot at the Civic Center, or the old Honor Farm and the now defunct San Geronimo Golf Course purchased by the County.
One of those locations will have the fewest impacts after mitigating them to levels less than significant. It is the responsibility of the County to identify and choose that location to provide homeless services!
Francis Drouillard
