The Rose Creek Watershed Alliance (Alliance) is an alliance of organizations formed to help plan the future of the 23,427-acre Rose Creek Watershed in San Diego County, California. Current watershed residents and visitors benefit from the efforts of many who have worked over past decades to preserve portions of the watershed and make them available for the public; city-owned Marian Bear Memorial Park and Rose Canyon Natural Open Space Park are two wonderful results of past preservation efforts.

In 2005, the Alliance was established to help create a plan to help improve the watershed. After almost five years of consideration and public input, the San Diego City Council accepted the plan, titled the Rose Creek Watershed Opportunities Assessment, on October 21, 2008. The Alliance has been working together since to help implement its recommendations. There is more to be done to protect the watershed for future generations; please join us! info@rosecreekwatershed.org

• $200,000 Grant is awarded to Connect a Missing Trail Linkage through Rose Creek Watershed The Coastal Conservancy has awarded Alliance member the San Diego County Bicycle Coalition a $200,000 grant to refine the trail improvements suggested in the Assessment to connect the upper and lower watershed from near the end of the existing Rose Canyon bicycle trail at Santa Fe Ave to the start of the existing bicycle path at Mission Bay Drive. The grant also proposed study of new pedestrian and bicycle crossings over the railroad tracks under Highways 5 and 52 so cyclists and pedestrians can cross the rail tracks safely. The goal is to provide improved safe access from the upper watershed to Mission Bay so that pedestrians and cyclists can travel the watershed to the beach and Mission Bay without having to cross a road. See the Conservancy staff report at here. Contact the Bicycle Coalition execdir@sdcbc.org if you would like to participate in the stakeholder process for this key trail.

• Alliance Comments on Mid Coast Rail Environmental Scoping
  SANDAG has begun the environmental review process for the Mid-Coast transit project proposed to travel the Rose Creek Watershed up to North University City. Alliance members recently made comments on the scoping. See comments here.

• News about the Mission Bay Wetlands at the Mouth of Rose Creek Both the City’s adopted Mission Bay Plan and the Rose Creek Watershed Assessment call for the creation of new wetlands where Rose Creek meets the ocean in Mission Bay. Alliance members encourage actions that will not foreclose the opportunity to implement this long-held City policy. Recently Alliance members were encouraged by a study that showed the proposed Mission Bay bicycle bridge connecting Pacific Beach Drive across Rose Creek would not significantly conflict with the creation of wetlands at the mouth of the creek. The Bicycle Bridge will be a welcome asset to Mission Bay and complements the Alliance’s work to improve cycling and pedestrian connections in the upper watershed. See the study here. See the Alliance letter to the Coastal Commission here.
  
  

Bicycling in Marian Bear Memorial Park
Photo: Walter Shaw, Marian Bear Natural Park Recreation Council

• Hydrology Study Underway; Presentation Materials available for Review In April 2010 a series of stakeholder meetings were held to review the work of the hydrology consultants and to seek public input. A power point presentation outlining the work to date is available at here. Additional meetings will be held this summer. If you would like to be notified of those meetings, please contact info@rosecreekwatershed.org.
  
  
• First Five Tasks of Watershed Hydrology Study Completed
  One of the recommendations of the Rose Creek Watershed Opportunities Assessment, 2.6.1, was to develop more accurate hydrologic and hydraulic information about the watershed. This information is essential for planning, designing and implementing large scale watershed restoration and enhancement projects. The first five tasks of a watershed hydrology study have been completed and the second five are underway. See the reports resulting from those first tasks at http://www.rosecreekwatershed.org/hydrologystudy.html.