A place for sports and nature
By Jim Chappell, Amy Meyer and Johanna Wald
Monday, November 27, 2006
A RECENT proposal to restore an important creek and watershed in the Presidio has created a needless controversy. Part of the stream is buried beneath a soccer field. As demonstrated at a heavily attended public workshop, there is a need for more sports fields in San Francisco. It was apparent that many speakers assumed that the restoration of the Presidio's Tennessee Hollow watershed meant the loss of the well-used field, which is frequently soggy since the stream flows beneath it.Some have portrayed this as a confrontation between sports fields and nature, where one side can only gain at the expense of the other. We disagree. There is room for both.
The Presidio, rich in military and cultural history, is a place of unsurpassed natural beauty. That's why Congress saved the former army post from being sold and developed. The Golden Gate National Recreation Area, of which the Presidio is part, is home to one of the highest concentrations of rare, threatened and endangered plants and animals of any national park in the country.
Tennessee Hollow's watershed, which covers about 10 percent of the eastern half of the Presidio, provides a unique opportunity in San Francisco to restore an entire watershed, from its headwaters near Inspiration Point to the bay at Crissy Marsh. At the Hollow's heart lies the legendary El Polín Spring, from which the earliest Spanish explorers sipped. It is now an important archeological site, and a place of solitude that people share with songbirds and hummingbirds.
But decades ago the Army buried most of Tennessee Hollow's streams under landfills and in culverts. It's the only watershed in San Francisco that can be fully returned to a natural state.
The benefits to San Franciscans of restoring this natural system are significant. As Richard Louv writes in his new book, Last Child in the Woods, "...a growing body of research links our mental, physical and spiritual health directly to our association with nature -- in positive ways ... (and) ... as children need good nutrition and adequate sleep, they may very well need contact with nature."
In other words, kids need ball fields and they need natural places where they can explore and learn. We are blessed that San Francisco has a national park next door with superb natural resources. As the Bay Area population expands, those natural places will become even more important.
More San Franciscans and people from the Bay Area volunteer in the Presidio and the Golden Gate National Recreation Area than in any other national park. Earlier this year, hundreds showed up to begin the restoration of the lower reaches of Tennessee Hollow, as they have done at Crissy Field. Completing Tennessee Hollow will encourage stewardship and community participation in restoring and interpreting the watershed's rich history. Schoolchildren could have hands-on experience renewing the natural world. Done correctly, with relocated ball fields and a full natural restoration, Tennessee Hollow would provide Crissy's advantages of better recreation and a better natural experience.
But to accomplish this, some sports fields, built on landfills under which the Hollow is buried, must be relocated. We said relocated, not lost. They can be built with better facilities, and proper drainage so they aren't soggy traps for schoolchildren's running feet.
Many people want more and better sports fields, and they're entitled to them. Conservationists and urban planning organizations, such as SPUR, support recreation in the Presidio, including sports fields. But the national park can only be part of the solution to San Franciscans' recreational needs. Sports advocates need to convince the mayor, supervisors and the Recreation and Park Department to provide better sports fields in city parks.
We can have sports fields and a rich experience of nature in our city if we work together to achieve both goals. There are other good sites for sports fields in the Presidio, but there is only one place where Tennessee Hollow can be restored.
Jim Chappell is president of SPUR, San Francisco Planning and Urban Research. Amy Meyer is a former Presidio Trust board member and co-creator of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Johanna Wald is an environmental lawyer and member of the San Francisco Commission on the Environment.
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URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2006/11/27/EDG41LIA501.DTL