Willow Creek supporters seek $3M for Sausalito project
An environmental nonprofit is seeking a $3 million grant to bring the underground creek to the surface at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Academy in Sausalito.
Friends of Willow Creek has secured permission from the Sausalito Marin City School District to apply for the money from the San Francisco Bay Water Quality Improvement Fund. The funds would supplement the $3 million the district received from the same source in 2023. The application deadline is Tuesday.
“The total project cost, including maintenance and monitoring, is likely to approach $6 million,” Friends of Willow Creek leader Steve Moore said Friday. “The SMCSD board directed in August that the creek project length would increase from 600 feet to 960 feet, and cost estimates increased as expected.”
The architectural design firm Prunuske Chatham Inc. is working on plans for the project as part of an $800,000 contract with the school district awarded in late 2024.
Moore said he and others are aiming for construction to start by the middle of 2027, depending on the success of the application and other factors.
“The timing is dependent on funding availability and when permits are issued by the Division of State Architect and federal and state agencies for wetlands permits,” Moore said.
The Division of the State Architect is the office in charge of approving designs for public school buildings in California.
Moore said the latest plan by Prunuske Chatham shows a design concept that includes a small creekside amphitheater and an outdoor classroom that would complement a paved path along the resurfaced creek.
The project would free the creek from its subterranean home at an outlet in the upper area of the campus. From there, it would travel along the edge of the campus to where it currently surfaces near the city’s flatlands.
Science teacher Nathan Scripps said he has written a letter of support to be included in the application packet.
“I think it’s one of the best examples of a project that complements all the new construction at our school,” he said. “We’re excited to see this thing come alive.”
Moore said the project could help Sausalito “reclaim its natural heritage that was mostly lost to development over the last century.”
He said “daylighting urban creeks from underground pipes back into open, vegetated channels” has numerous benefits. In addition to improving water quality, wildlife habitat and climate resiliency, the project has the potential to “provide a place for people to gather to study or just appreciate the sights and sounds of nature, right where they live and work,” he said.
The San Francisco Bay Water Quality Improvement Fund grant program has been administered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency since 2008. It prioritizes programs that make measurable progress in restoring the bay and its watersheds.
Some of the past grants have paid for projects to improve water quality, clean up contaminated shorelines, restore wetlands and implement urban stormwater treatment systems, according to the program website.