1966 San Luis Sewer…er…Creek
September 19, 2008 – 8:00 am
Howard Martin, Fish and Game Warden stood in San Luis Obispo Creek today where it flows through the downtown heart of the city pointing to the trash and garbage which makes the stream an “open sewer.”
October 6, 1966
Today San Luis Creek is a downtown gem for folks looking for a little slice of nature in the middle of the city.
In 1966 the creek walking experience was closer to a visit to a third world country than a trip to Disneyland.
State Game Warden Howard Martin was up against generations of bad habits when he began contacting property owners along San Luis Creek.
For decades the San Luis Creek had been paved over, ignored and treated as a dump.
The first day story on October 10, 1966 quotes a Fish and Game report for the Regional Water Quality Control Board.
“The stream is being used as an open sewer. There are many pipes which sporadically spew untreated waste of unknown quality into the stream.”
They counted 89 pipes culverts and drains dumping untreated water downtown.
“All test fish exposed to the San Luis Obispo sewage treatment plant waste died violently within 10 minutes.”
Today the treated water is clean enough to use to irrigate playing fields. If Los Osos is interested, there is a history of the San Luis Obispo sewer being written here.
The second day story was headlined, “The creek polluters say we’ve always done it that way.”
Some shops in town had trap doors to make it easier to dump garbage into the creek.
At least it never got as bad as Cleveland, in 1969 the Cuyahoga River caught fire.
Environmental awareness was a growing issue in the 1960’s.
Creek Day is coming up all over the county. CONFIRM the date and time…the information in the link looks like it is from last year.
(A now abandoned Week of Welcome activity used to be the Sewer Tour. A WOW group would hold hands and walk the creek from Safeway to the Mission with few or no flashlights. The tunnel would erupt with screams when a group stepped off into an unanticipated pool or tripped on an obstruction. Some traditions are worth forgetting.)
Photos by Jim Vestal
2 Responses to “1966 San Luis Sewer…er…Creek”
Today the creeks are much cleaner and steelhead are returning, thanks so much to the leadership and hard work of individuals like Ken Schwartz and many others, along with organizations like The Land Conservancy, ECOSLO, City and County staff, and various water groups.
Now we have Mission Plaza, which is the center of community events and a major tourist draw for San Luis Obispo. We have creeks returning to health and beauty.
But forty years ago the people dumping trash and poison into our creeks insisted that they’ve “always done it this way” and wanted to keep on wrecking resources. There’s no excuse for such selfish, lazy, destructive attitudes and behaviors. They were made to change, and look at the benefits.
Today we hear the same thing from people who insist that they should be able to wash their cars in their driveways even if their dirty, greasy water runs off and pollutes the creeks, killing wildlife and endangering the rest of us. It may not be as visible as this trash-filled sewage dump, but it’s still very bad.
There will always be people who don’t care about the environment or their neighbors, human and otherwise. Those of us who do care - and that’s most of us - need to continue to push back against those who would defend their uninhibited destruction of resources.
This picture of SLO Creek 40 years ago makes it clear that these irresponsible polluters are wrong in so many ways - no matter how loud they whine and yell (the driveway car washers), or vote to pave parkland (Romero, Brown, Carter), or shoot 40 caribou in a single day (Palin). These people are simply wrong, no matter how much they insist they have to right.
By Chickadee on Sep 20, 2008
I’m not a Palin water carrier (though I agree with her politics and family values), but I am a hunter and shooter. Culling the herds of Caribou in Alaska, insures the health and future of the animals, and the Caribou dependent environ. Too many of any animal in a limited area, will create a scenario that makes disease and starvation run rampant among the specie. Culling the herd to keep their numbers manageable, saves the grasslands and tundra from being grazed barren. When a specie has a die off from disease, the predators that live on them, and the carrion eaters that rely on the predators kills, all go away from starvation themselves. Now you will have grassland and shrub areas that will grow untouched, creating fire hazards that can burn for weeks with no containment in sight, due to the lack of access. You can see the result of old/over-growth here in California every year, as we go up in flames.
Do not think the Caribou are simply killed and forgotten. All the meat is gathered by sportsmen and tribes for distribution among the poor and tribal members. The tribes will also use the hides and other parts. That’s what many hunters do in Alaska, and all the other states too.
Don’t let your hatred of a person or political party cloud your ability to learn different views, or acquire real knowledge.
THAT being said…..I recall many wonderfully scary times hiking through “Deep Dark” under the city. I also remember the creek being pretty nasty until Mission plaza was built, and the creek walk was developed. As much as I hate the “Big City-fication” of SLO (boooo for the Copeland project), I am an advocate of beautification and improvements, as long as city history isn’t destroyed.
By SSG David Medzyk on Sep 20, 2008