Students at the Hatlen Center for the Blind in San Pablo, Calif., are learning skills most of us take for granted – life skills that will help them live independently. Now, after 36 years, the center has a chance to gain its own independence, right here in El Cerrito.

Watch the video report from ECF reporter Matt Durning to learn how.

To learn more about this unique development project, read the earlier ECF article, “A New Neighbor in El Cerrito”

It’s the weekend – the El Cerrito DMV is closed – but  a constant stream of cars flows through the Manila Avenue parking lot. Rather than the usual hurry-up and wait posture of the DMV line, these cars move through the lot with the efficiency of a well-run drive through.

The cars are here to take advantage of the free electronic waste event sponsored by the city and run by the Oakland-based company, Universal Waste Management.

Trunks full of old TVs, computers, microwaves, and vacuum cleaners, are being unloaded to be recycled. “We take anything with a plug,” said Jan Rice, who is running the event in the empty parking lot – turned bustling transfer station.

One El Cerrito resident in line with a plastic bag full of small electronics including some cordless phones, said she comes to the e-waste events regularly. When asked why she doesn’t just throw her electronics away, she said, “well you’re not suppose to.” Another man waiting in line had an old electronic keyboard that he’d been trying to get rid of for three weeks. He said he pulled into the lot when he saw the sign for the event on San Pablo Avenue.

One weekend event like this will keep about 50,000 pounds of electronic waste from sitting in a landfill, according to Rice. “This is the fastest growing segment of the waste stream. In California alone, 6,000 computers go obsolete a day,” she said. Electronics left in a landfill can leech carcinogens and toxins like lead, mercury, poly vinyl chloride, and chromium.

Besides protecting the environment there is also money to be made by recycling electronics thanks to a 2003 state law that added a tax, called the electronic waste recycling fee, to anything with a screen. The fee can range anywhere from $8 to $25 depending on the size of the device. The tax is different from something like a bottle refund because the consumer will never get that money back. Instead, it is paid to collectors and recyclers of electronic waste.

Recyclers get reimbursed from the state based on the amount and type of e-waste collected. Companies like Universal Waste Management also dismantle the electronics and sell the material to specialized purchasers. “We reduce the electronics to the base component parts, like glass and plastic, and metal,” said Rice. “We might get pennies on the pound for some of this stuff.” The real money comes from the state reimbursements, she said.

The city of El Cerrito has a progressive recycling center. They accept the usual mixed paper, plastic bottles, and aluminum, but they also recycle batteries, large appliances, cell phones, and motor oil. But they are unable to deal with the quantity and difficulty of recycling most electronics. So, twice a year the city invites Universal Waste to host a free electronic recycling event. Residents can safely get rid of their old electronics and recyclers can make a living off of keeping toxic trash out of the landfill.

There have been a few stories in the media recently about the e-waste stream being exported to developing countries. Discarded cathode ray tubes (CRTs) – like TVs and computer monitors – are shipped, often illegally, to other countries where they are disassembled for valuable copper, gold, and lead. Without regulation, safety standards, or proper equipment, processing e-waste can cause in a lethally toxic environment.

Rice said, “I got a call once from China. They wanted to buy some CRT’s, but we won’t do it.” Universal Waste Management recycles all e-waste items and the products stay in California,                                                                      she said.

Besides electronics, events organized by Universal Waste Management also accept donations of coats for the organization One Warm Coat, and food donations for local food banks.

If you missed the January 3 and 4 event, there will be another e-waste event in El Cerrito on the first weekend in June. E-waste can also be dropped off at the Universal Waste Management facility at 721 37^th Avenue in Oakland.

More information about local e-waste disposal can be found at www.unwaste.com or by calling 888.832.9839.

At the December 10 meeting, the West Contra Costa County school board will discuss a new proposal that would have Richmond’s Leadership Charter School move onto the site of Castro Elementary School. The proposal was abrupt and some say it speaks to the discord among board members.

Veteran school board member Charles Ramsey placed the Leadership relocation on the agenda. Ramsey says that if Castro closes as planned in June, then they should consider putting Leadership at the site. The charter school is currently housed at Gompers High School in Richmond, which is also set to close at the end of the year.

The meeting’s original agenda was to swear in its two latest members: Antonio Medrano, a retired teacher and Tony Thurmond, a member of Richmond’s city council. The inaugural meeting usually has a celebratory spirit, filled with friends, family members and other supporters. However, Medrano believes the Leadership proposal was put on the agenda as a divisive strategy with the intent to get a lot of reaction. “To do that side run, on the remaining days of the old school board to me is not fair,” said Medrano. “I would use a stronger word but I’ll just say it’s not fair.”

Medrano is not only against the move but he also disagrees with how it was proposed. He only learned of the proposal through an email.  After talking with contacts at both schools, Medrano realized very few people were informed about the potential relocation. “We have to involve the community and it has to be transparent,” he said. Medrano believes the old school board members have a history of ignoring community input. “What they’re doing is indicative of what they’ve been doing for the last four years,” he said.

In fact, Medrano and others have said school board president Karen Pfeifer, Madeline Kronenberg, and Charles Ramsey had a tendency to vote together, creating a 3-2 divide that was impossible to penetrate. Valerie Snider, a member of the Save Castro Park and School group, says their alliance made the two remaining school board members, Audrey Miles and David Brown, “ineffectual.”  Brown decided not to run for reelection.

With this thought in mind, Snider and her group members directed their efforts to prevent Pfeifer’s reelection in November. Despite having over $100,000 in campaign contributions, Pfeifer lost the race. The election brought two new school board members, Medrano and Thurmond, with strong community ties. Snider believes their addition will change the dynamics of the school board and will provide school board member Miles with much needed support on votes. “We’ve broken that block now that Karen Pfiefer is gone,” said Snider. “And not only are we happy that she’s gone but we actually feel excited about Antonio Medrano and Tony Thurmond.”

Although many residents have embraced them, not everyone is happy with Medrano and Thurmond joining the school board. School board member Charles Ramsey is one of their most vocal critics. “I oppose both of them. They’re good people but I don’t believe we share the same philosophy,” he said.

Before they were even sworn into office, the new elects had their first challenge.
On November 12, the board held an open meeting to discuss school closure criteria.  President Karen Pfeifer was noticeably absent. The district’s superintendent Dr. Bruce Harter presented his case for the closures through a series of charts and graphs that illustrated the dire financial straits the districts now faces.

Enrollment has been steady decreasing over the last five years, an almost 12 percent decline since 2002. Year after year, expenses have continued to grow even as the budget shrinks. The district will need to cut $1.5 million each year for the next two years according to the approved budget. They plan to reach their goal by selling district owned property, reducing services, containing the costs of benefits and school consolidation. Closing an elementary school will save $300,000 and $800,000 for a middle or high school.

School board member Ramsey projects they will need to close five elementary schools, one middle school and one high school.  Its tough.  It’s not a nice place to be,” he said. “Life does not have an infinite amount of resources. You have to try to make good decisions within the tax base that you have.”

Both Medrano and Thurmond believe the district should examine test scores, facility conditions and geographic equity of every school in the district before making a decision about closures. This would include even recently built schools such as LovonyaDeJean in Richmond and El Cerrito High School, a suggestion that increased the divide between them and the old board members. “I don’t think that’s compliant with our fiduciary duties to be good stewards of the money that we have been possession of,” said Ramsey. “I think that would be a tragic mistake.”

Save Castro leader Snider believes the school board had an obsession with rebuilding schools in El Cerrito. Before the November elections, three of the five school board members, including the president, were residents of the city. “They continually said El Cerrito needs a middle school. However this is not the El Cerrito Unified School District, its the West Contra Costa Unified School District,” Snider said.  Miles, Medrano and Thurmond are all Richmond residents who will bring attention to struggling area schools like Kennedy High and Adams Middle School.

The school board next major contention may also involve Castro’s site. The school is expected to close in June. However, that may change if Medrano has his way. “It’s not going to close. We have the votes to say no. The old board: yes. The new board: no,” he said.

The December 10 meeting will held at 6:30PM at Lovonya DeJean Middle School and will be last meeting of the year.

BY MATT DURNING //

In October, the city of El Cerrito began work to improve the upper stretch of Fairmount Avenue from Richmond Street, just east of the Plaza BART station, to Colusa Avenue at Sunset View Cemetery.

Funded through the city’s redevelopment agency, the project has two key goals: to improve pedestrian safety and enhance physical beauty throughout this important community corridor.

Watch the video below to learn more about the work completed so far, community reaction to the project, and what’s still to come.

You can read the original Upper Fairmount Avenue Streetscape Master Plan report here.

For project updates, visit the city’s Public Works webpage here.

San Pablo Avenue is a major economic force in El Cerrito, supplying the community with everything from nail salons to novelty shops. Now, a new plan to regulate future development along this major thoroughfare is nearing completion.

Watch the slideshow below to learn more.

BY SWETA VOHRA//

Clear glass jars of red, white, black and bamboo-infused rice line the kitchen counters in the home of Caryl Levine and Kenneth Lee. Pictures of rice farms and farmers in exotic locations hang on the walls in the hallway. Books and articles on global agriculture, entrepreneurship, and rice cultivation are neatly stacked on a bookshelf and strewn across the coffee table.

These earthy images, products and colors don’t simply decorate the home; they illustrate the life that Levine and Lee follow. This quaint house on a quiet street in El Cerrito is the headquarters for Lotus Foods, Inc. Levine and Lee, co-founders of Lotus Foods, are self-proclaimed lovers of rice. But more than that, they are using their love of rice as a tool to connect Americans with small family farms in places like India, Madagascar and Bhutan.

What Levine calls, “a small company with a big mission,” Lotus Foods offers American consumers “hand-crafted,” high-quality rice from private family plots in remote areas of the world. The vision of the company is to “support sustainable global agriculture” by encouraging production of locally grown rice “enabling the small rice farmer to earn an honorable living.”

The root of Lotus Foods grew from a marketing research trip back in 1993 by Levine and Lee. Both set out to travel the world in an effort to find sound entrepreneurial ideas to implement in the United States. “We wanted to do something but we didn’t know what,” says Levine.

They came back with 90 different ideas jotted down on paper. “I still have the list,” says Levine as she points to the corner shelf.

But one of their experiences stood out among all the others says Levine. Taking a break in a rural region of China, Levine and Lee were served steaming bowls of black rice, something they had never seen before. The roasted nutty flavor of the black grains pleasantly surprised them and provoked Levine and Lee to ask about the rice. The locals explained this black staple was well known for increasing blood circulation and longevity and therefore was served only to the Emperor for many centuries. “Ken had the perfect name right then and there – the Forbidden Rice,” says Levine.

The taste, the nutritional value and the compelling story behind this black rice planted the idea of selling traditional, hand-grown rice to Americans, a market that they believed was still untapped at the time. After spending months researching the rice market as well as some of other business ideas, Levine and Lee decided to undertake this nascent plan and grow it into a business. The “Forbidden Rice,” as it is still called today, was the first on the list of products.

But the challenges were great. “It’s all about relationships,” explains Levine, “ and we were innovators in this market so nobody knew what we were.”

The first relationship to cultivate was between the company and the local growers. Lee spent months traveling to and from remote areas in India, Nepal, Bhutan and parts of Africa visiting with farmers and understanding the methodology used for the grain production. He would seek out non-profits that already worked in many of these regions and explain the business concept of Lotus Foods. Slowly, by establishing trust, farmers started to supply rice to the Lotus food line – Kalijira rice from Bengal, black rice from China and Carnaroli rice from the Andes.

Besides building partnerships, the locals also had to be trained on the proper preparation, sorting, and cleaning of the crop. Most of these farmers were accustomed to selling only in their local markets where cleanliness and sorting are much less emphasized compared to American markets. By teaming up with local non-profits and other agricultural organizations in these regions, Lotus Foods was able to teach growers the methods of rice production for the global market.

The company also had to forge bonds with their American consumers. “We had to educate the market on why [our rice] was better,” says Levine.

The first target market was the “upscale foodies” and “white tablecloth restaurants” which they knew always look for new additions to their menu that look attractive on plates. The Lotus rice products were pitched as having cooking quality – they cook in less than 30 minutes, tasting better, and carrying high nutritional value. Then Levine and Lee targeted specialty food stores like Williams-Sonoma, followed by natural food stores like Whole Foods and eventually grocery stores like Safeway. Today, Lotus Foods has about one million dollars in sales annually around the country.

As a result of paying premium prices and high costs of shipping, Lotus Food products are pricier than the traditional commodity rice, says Levine. But she says with the nutritional quality, consumers will “save on doctor’s bills in the future,” and feels that spending a little more on high-quality rice is justified. Plus, it is indirectly in support of family farms across the world.

Levine relates a story from 1994 when they had met with the minister of agriculture in Bhutan. At that time, Bhutanese exclusively grew red rice, a huge part of the local diet. However, since there was no lucrative market for the staple crop, the minister was considering importing rice from India and getting rid of several of the farms. The locals were resistant. When Lotus Foods offered them a global outlet, Bhutan was able to sustain its long tradition of growing red rice. “We kept the bio-diversity alive,” says Levine, and today, the Bhutanese red rice is the country’s only export to the US.

“It’s a win-win situation,” says Levine. “We feel good about our work.”

Levine and Lee had no idea 15 years ago that this is the work they would be doing. In fact, living in El Cerrito was completely by chance and maybe a little luck. Levine was teaching music at the University of Hartford and was offered a job at UC Berkeley. Knowing nothing about the Bay Area, Levine relied on her cousin who lived in the East Bay to find a place for her and Lee. Levin’s cousin found a house in El Cerrito that was being sold by a friend and told Levine to call about it immediately.

“I had no idea where El Cerrito was, but I knew I needed a place to live. And my cousin loved the house,” says Levine. She called the owner from somewhere in Wisconsin on her cross-country drive to the West Coast, and bought the house.

A decision made on the whim turned out to be beneficial in the long run. Besides falling in love with the city, Levine says the location of El Cerrito for Lotus Foods is fateful. With such natural and specialty food stores like El Cerrito Natural Grocery, Berkeley Bowl and Whole Foods nearby, there are not only numerous outlets for their rice but also a lot of local support.

With this support and their established relationships, Lotus Foods is now taking a new step forward in their business. A new method of rice farming called System of Rice Intensification, pioneered by a Cornell professor, is transforming the way rice is being grown worldwide. According to a New York Times article in July, this new system requires less water and produces a higher yield of crops. Cornell University contacted Lotus Foods to offer an international market to farms that have implemented this new system.

“This is an opportunity to revolutionize the way rice is grown,” says Levine. She and Lee jumped at the chance and are currently in the works with Cornell and its partners in this new endeavor.

Meanwhile, the rest of the Lotus Food rice products are going strong in local and national markets. The clear jars that line the counters in Levine’s kitchen are for the rice lovers in them, and they are also the display of Lotus Food’s product line – brown rice from Bengal, red rice from Bhutan, black rice from China.

But whether it’s black or brown, there’s one thing that Levine can guarantee when they pick their rice for Lotus: “It’s gotta taste great.” And they can assure you that they do.

The first year for Kenny Kahn as head coach at El Cerrito High was marked by comebacks: The Gauchos stormed back from an 0-3 start by winning six of their final seven regular season games, and came from behind in two of those wins with late touchdowns.  But the No. 8 Gauchos could not muster another rally on Friday night, losing to the No. 9 Titans of Kennedy High 34-9 in El Cerrito. With the loss, the Gauchos were eliminated from the NCS Division III playoffs.

Gaucho player Malcolm Carson watches the final minutes of El Cerrito

“When you get to playoffs, you can’t play from behind,” Kahn said. “JFK of Fremont was able to show up and play with intensity, play with tenacity, play aggressively, where there were times where we looked timid.”

The chilly autumn night began strangely as the game was delayed about 30 minutes due to Kennedy arriving late; the Titans had fallen victim to the infamous Bay Area traffic.

But it was the Gauchos who were left out in the cold early, committing a multitude of penalties in the first half. Seven flags went against El Cerrito before halftime, compared to only one infraction for Kennedy. Despite the discrepancy, Kahn wasn’t crying foul at anyone but his own team.

“I’m not gonna’ blame the refs on that one – that’s mental mistakes,” he said.

Running back Jerrell Walker was the hero for the Titans in the first half, notching a key interception on defense seconds before halftime and scoring twice on offense. His first touchdown was a 2-yard run that put the Titans ahead 7-0.

El Cerrito answered with an unlikely touchdown run by quarterback Andre Williams, who turned a broken pass play into a 49-yard scramble. The quarterback ran from one sideline to the other without ever crossing the line of scrimmage, then reversed field yet again and found an open path down the sideline for the score. A missed extra point left the Gauchos trailing 7-6.

Kennedy was able to respond at the end of the half after Walker intercepted a pass with less than 30 seconds remaining. He then made sure the turnover paid off by catching a 38-yard touchdown pass with only 3.4 seconds left on the clock. The pass was nearly intercepted by a Gaucho defender, but the miss left Walker all alone for an easy score.

Although the offense stalled due to turning the ball over and penalties, the Gauchos found themselves trailing only 14-6 at the half. They seemed poised for a comeback in the third quarter when they emerged from the locker room and made a series of strong defensive plays.

“Where (Kennedy) got us initially was on just getting off the ball – just real quick get-offs,” said El Cerrito Defensive Coordinator Dan Shaughnessy. “And we were able to clamp that down by blitzing the backers.”

After forcing the Titans to punt on their first possession of the second half, the Gauchos used two 20-plus yard passes to set them up for the go-ahead score. But the Kennedy defense held, and the Gauchos settled for a 20-yard field goal to draw within 14-9 with 7:07 to go in the third quarter.

Although their defense continued to play well, turnovers doomed the Gauchos late in the game. The momentum swung in Kennedy’s favor when the Gauchos fumbled away a punt return at the end of the third quarter, setting the Titans up in good field position. They quickly took advantage of the turnover, scoring a third touchdown on a 3-yard run by Dane Dismuke to push the lead to 21-9.

The score would change again just three plays later when El Cerrito fumbled on its own 2-yard line. Dismuke added a second touchdown run less than two minutes after his first score and, despite a botched point-after attempt, the lead had swelled to 27-9.

“We’re human and we do make mistakes – unfortunately, those mistakes came out to be costly in the overall outcome of a football game,” Kahn said.

The Titans scored once more in the final minutes on a scramble by quarterback Trevor Damewood with the game already out of reach. That scramble capped a nine-and-a-half minute span in which the Titans racked up 20 unanswered points.

“We wanted to be even more aggressive (in the second half) and it just didn’t work out,” Shaughnessy said. “(Kennedy) didn’t have any situations where there was some guy late to get on the field, or too many guys in the huddle or anything like that.”

El Cerrito finishes the season at 6-5, a one-game improvement over its 5-5 campaign in 2007.

The Titans improve to 6-5 and will advance past the first round of the playoffs for the first time in school history. The win also avenges a 52-14 first-round blowout the Titans suffered at the hands of the Gauchos in 2006.

“I’m satisfied with the game play of (the seniors), I just wish that these mental mistakes that we make could be minimized,” Kahn said. “We tried to stick with what we had and give everything that we had, but in the end, what can you do? One team comes on your field and shows you up.”

After the game, Kahn talked about his first year walking the sidelines for the Gauchos and the future of his departing seniors, whose high school football careers have come to a close.

“I think that there’s so much to be said about an 0-3 team that ended up making the playoffs, coming in second in the league,” Kahn said. “We have some guys who are going to do some tremendous things in this world… I love these kids to death, and I know that this isn’t the end of the road for the El Cerrito Gauchos, and this is not the end of the road for many of our seniors.”

BY DANIEL MCGLYNN //

Author, historian and El Cerrito resident Dave Weinstein spent months of digging through piles of archived historical information – newspaper clippings from the turn of the last century, personal papers and images of what life used to be like in Berkeley – to create his recently released book, “It Came From Berkeley: How Berkeley Changed the World.

In the book, Weinstein sought to answer, “What does it mean to say something is Berkeley? How did Berkeley the place become Berkeley the adjective?”

In his research, Weinstein found that Berkeley is more of an idea than anything else. This idea is both a cause and effect of the innovation, eccentricity, and sense of importance that Berkeley the place has demonstrated from the beginning.

“There’s a great continuity in the history of Berkeley, it didn’t just erupt out of nowhere in the 1960’s,” said Weinstein.

The book and the characters that make up Berkeley’s history will be the subject of his talk on Thursday, Nov. 20 at 7 p.m. at the El Cerrito Library.

A reporter and editor for the West County Times for 17 years, Weinstein left the newspaper business in 2001, in part, he said to spend time writing about topics he found more “personally rewarding.”

“I’m really into art and architecture and I got more and more into the idea of preserving buildings and historic landscapes,” said Weinstein. Now he does a lot of writing about lesser-known Bay Area architects for books and magazines.

Besides being a writer, Weinstein is also chairman of Friends of Cerrito Theatre. In early 2000 the organization rallied the community and city council to save the historic Art Deco Cerrito Theater. For years, the building, which still contains original murals and etched glass characteristic of the Art Deco period, was used as a furniture warehouse.

As a reporter, Weinstein often wrote features about interesting things in El Cerrito. That is how he stumbled upon the forgotten architecture hidden in the bowels of the theater-turned-warehouse. When the warehouse came up for sale, Weinstein and others in town became concerned that the signature architectural elements would be damaged, demolished or removed. After lobbying the city council, the theatre was restored and is now home to the Cerrito Speakeasy Theatre.

In addition to It Came From Berkeley, Weinstein also authored two other books: Signature Architects of the San Francisco Bay Area and Berkeley Rocks: Building with Nature.

Besides the November 20 appearance at the El Cerrito Library, Weinstein will be at Black Oak Books at 7 p.m. on Shattuck Avenue. He will also give a talk at the Oakland Chapel of the Chimes on December 11. You can find more information about the book and a full schedule of appearances at davidsweinstein.com

BY ALEXIA UNDERWOOD //

On a recent Saturday afternoon in El Cerrito, a small army of East Bay volunteers gathered at the end of Adams Road to reflect on their handiwork.

Two hours earlier, an ugly chain link fence marred the edge of Cerrito Creek. Now it was bundled neatly on the ground, much of the blackberry underbrush had been cleared, and the sun sparkled on the clear water.

It’s hard to believe that this is the same creek that recently topped Save the Bay’s annual Bay Area Trash Hot Spot list, released in September.

Save the Bay, an environmental non-profit and policy advocate based out of San Francisco, has compiled data on creeks and waterways in the Bay Area. This year, Save the Bay collaborated with the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board, a governmental organization, to create their list.

While all 23 of the waterways on the list are considered “trash impaired,” there has been some confusion about what this list really means.

The waterways were not listed in a particular order of “trashiness,” said Amy Alton, a spokesperson for Save the Bay.

“We make a very concerted effort to not say top, or top 10 – we just say 23 trash hotspots,” she said.

“I think a lot of people think these are the only 23 hotspots in the Bay Area – that’s not true. It’s likely that there are many more waterways that are just as trashy. They just don’t have the data on them,” said Alton.

“I don’t think there is any way to compare them in terms of ‘worst,’” said Richard Looker, a water resources control engineer with the water board – the source of the information for Save the Bay’s highly-publicized list this year.

Looker said that his organization had been collecting trash data since 2001, but the specific data gathered from Cerrito Creek was from March and July 2004. The data was based on in-person trash assessments.

Wil Bruhns, the chief of planning with the water board, elaborated on how the creeks were analyzed.

“You measure off stretches of creek and count pieces of trash – then you remove them, and come back two weeks later and see how much has come back,” Bruhns said. The two most important things are “how much is there, and how fast it comes in and out,” Bruhns said.

“We don’t get all of them – it’s a matter of resources,” he said. “No, we have not hit every creek in the Bay Area.”

Susan Schwartz, president of Friends of Five Creeks, the all-volunteer group dedicated to creek restoration in the East Bay, was supervising the Saturday volunteer effort at Cerrito Creek.

“What we’ve found in many places is, if you make the place attractive and cared for, litter largely stops,” she said. “This is a continuation of a project that’s been going on for seven years to make Cerrito Creek attractive both to wildlife and humans, flood-safe, and, to some degree, to restore native plants.”

She listed a recent Girl Scout mural, steps built by a local Boy Scout troop, invasive plant clearing done by volunteers and other recent efforts as examples of community efforts.

Cerrito Creek, which stretches from the Berkeley Hills to the San Francisco Bay, runs close to the El Cerrito Plaza shopping center, which accounts for at least some of the trash pollution that placed this specific waterway on Save the Bay’s list.

When asked about Save the Bay’s recent list, Schwartz said that the creek did have a trash problem. She named the creek’s proximity to El Cerrito Plaza, three pipes delivering refuse from storm drains, and general littering as culprits.

However, she added, “This is unquestionably not one of the dirtiest creeks in the bay. It’s a lot more complicated than that.”

The purpose of making a “Trash Hot Spot” list and publicizing it was to raise awareness about the issue of polluting creeks, said Alton.

“Each year we release this list right before Coastal Clean Up Day,” she said. “We hope that people will see this and come out and help with the trash clean up.”

If you are interested in volunteering to help restore local creeks, here are some upcoming events:

Friends of Baxter Creek is organizing a restoration tour and work party on December 13, 9:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. Contact Ocean Halbert for more information: oceansdesign@gmail.com

Help Friends of Five Creeks plant native plants on newly restored parts of Cerrito Creek from 10 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. on Nov. 22.

Also, for walkers age 50 and up, explore restoration sites on El Cerrito’s Baxter Creek, from 9 a.m. – 11 a.m. on Thursday, Dec. 4.

Contact Susan Schwartz at f5creeks@aol.com or call 510-848-9358 for more information.

On a recent Saturday morning in El Cerrito, a small group of East Bay citizens decided to forgo sleeping in.  Instead, coffee in hand, they gathered at the dead-end of Adams Street in El Cerrito to participate in one of Friends of Five Creeks’ weekly work parties to restore local creeks to their natural beauty.

Two hours later, the results were tangible: an ugly chain-link fence that had marred the edge of the creek lay bundled neatly on the ground, much of the blackberry underbrush had been cleared, and the sun sparkled on the water.

Watch the slideshow below to hear what inspired some of these volunteers and see the impact of their work.

For more information on volunteering with Friends of Five Creeks or Friends of Baxter Creek, contact Susan Schwartz (f5creeks@aol.com) and Ocean Halbert (oceansdesign@gmail.com).