Why shouldn’t Waterdog be designated as a wildlife preserve?
As the Parks and Recreation Open Space Master Plan process is under way, a tiny but vocal group of people are aggressively lobbying to have the Waterdog/Hidden Canyon Open Space designated as a “nature preserve,” and demanding that all of Belmont’s open space policy decisions prioritize conservation and habitat protection over the recreational needs of people in our community. These activists are lobbying to severely limit recreational access to the open space. For example, they propose effectively banning cycling from the open space by limiting bicycles to two short, non-contiguous fire roads and banning them from the vast majority of existing multi-use singletrack trails.
Is it really necessary to ban certain classes of users from most of the park to protect wildlife? Are the flora and fauna of Waterdog open space under some kind of threat from people hiking and biking on the trails? The answer is no.
Depending on how you measure it, Waterdog Open Space is between 200 to 300 acres. The open space used to be a continuous greenbelt all the way from Ralston Avenue to the Water District land abutting I-280—that is, until a developer clear-cut and flat-topped the hills in order to build the Belmont Heights residential development in the 1970s. Now, Waterdog is completely surrounded on all sides by the large, single-family homes of the Belmont Heights residential development. From a land use point of view, Waterdog’s highest and best use is its current designation: recreational open space to serve the needs of Belmont’s residents and local neighboring communities.
Waterdog is far too small and has far too many humans around to seriously be considered to be set aside as a nature preserve. Even if we removed every trail and put a fence around it to keep humans out, the animals in the park would still be impacted by the dogs, cats, and humans who live around the perimeter of the park. Those homes and their associated impact (noise, traffic, lawn chemical runoff, light, and so forth) are present 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. By contrast, hikers, runners, cyclists, and dogs only have minimal and fleeting impact on the park’s flora and fauna.
In our highly urbanized area, it is important that wildlife have a place to live. They do—just about one mile away from the western edge of Waterdog’s open space, there is a twenty three thousand acre wildlife preserve: the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) Peninsula Watershed. It is a state-designated fish and game refuge, and a protected area within the UNESCO Golden Gate Biosphere Reserve. If you have driven westbound over the reservoir on Highway 92 toward Half Moon Bay, you have driven right over it. The SFPUC Peninsula Watershed is 23,000 acres of diverse and unique habitats ranging from oak woodlands and coniferous forests to serpentine grasslands is carefully managed to protect the quality of the water in the reservoirs and an abundance of native plant and animal life.
Because of its 150-year history as a protected source of safe, high-quality municipal drinking water, much of the SFPUC Peninsula Watershed is not open for recreational activity. The highest and best use of this land is to keep it a pristine water source and a bio-diverse refuge for wildlife. Recreational access to the watershed is restricted—as it should be—to the Fifield-Cahill Ridge Trail and the Crystal Springs Regional Trail managed by the San Mateo County Parks Department.
When you consider that we have already protected the SFPUC Peninsula Watershed’s 23,000 acres of woodlands, forests, and grasslands as a preserve, it is reasonable for the public to allocate 300 acres, just 1.3% of the area of the watershed to recreational use. The wildlife that that chooses to live in Waterdog Open Space has adapted to the presence of humans for generations, and will continue to do so. There are no scientific studies or surveys showing any measurable decrease in wildlife in Waterdog. The park abounds with finch, towhees, quail, deer, bobcats, wild turkeys, rabbits, lizards, woodrats, snakes, and, yes, waterdogs! These animals have adapted to human uses of Waterdog for over 100 years. There is no crisis here; the ecosystem of the park has been in a steady state for decades.
Human beings need outdoor space too, and it is common sense for Waterdog to primarily continue to serve this need. Designating Waterdog as a nature preserve will have little impact on wildlife, given its proximity to a 23,000 acre fish and game refuge. Designating it as a nature preserve would, however, have a devastating impact on the quality of life of the human beings who live in Belmont and neighboring communities. The wildlife in the 23,000 acre SFPUC watershed are completely protected. The City of Belmont was incorporated in 1926, so the humans and animals who share use of Waterdog’s 300 acres have done so in a sustainable way for 100 years.
Everyone—conservationists, environmentalists, animal lovers, hikers, bikers, trail runners, and dog walkers want the same thing: we want our shared gem of open space to remain vibrant, alive, and sustainable now, and for generations to come. Conservation and recreation are not mutually exclusive. Working together, we can continue sustainable shared use for the next 100 years.