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- Dear CLUI, I want to tell you about a magical place called the Las Gallinas Valley Sanitary District
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- where the wastewater effluent flows into a series of ponds by the Bay.
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- The LGVSD is next to a school, a farm, and the former Hamilton Air Force Base.
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- The LGVSD is one of the premier bird watching spots in the Bay Area, with over 200 different birds,
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- and a diverse number of land use examples in a concentrated area.
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- In addition to wildlife viewing, there is a hike that has excellent views
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- of the Bay, including ruined piers and duck hunting blinds.
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- Spring temperatures are perfect for hiking and wildflowers.
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- The Las Gallinas Valley Sanitary District Non-Marching Band (Sewer Band) has a free concert on May 18th.
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- Just South of LGVSD is McInnis County Park, which features a large number of playing fields.
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- There were taco trucks in the parking lot for a lunch stop. A hike up the hill goes past a miniature golf course.
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- A remote control car club was driving over a course on the rocks.
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- A friendly member of the North Bay RC Crawlers explained the competition.
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- Hiking over the hill affords a view of the McInnis Park Golf Center on one side,
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- a skate park and former Nike Missile barracks site on the other. The barracks are now a detox center.
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- The Nike silo has been used for water storage since 1978, but due to leakage, the Marin Municipal Water District is building a new tank.
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- The missile site was active from 1956-1972 and will be filled and capped.
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- On the Bay side of the hill is a small pond with bird houses filled with tree swallows.
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- This area borders on the golf course, and signs warn to watch out for stray balls.
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- Heading through the golf maintenance yard, a 7 mile hike was concluded by watching ducks bathe in the water treament ponds.
This hike would make an excellent CLUI-style field trip. I’ve provided a list of online resources below. The route for the 7-mile hike through LGVSD and McInnis that we designed is a bit complex. If enough people are interested in a tour of this area, I may be willing to lead a hike. If you decide to do this adventure on your own, feel free to contact me for a few key route details.
- Las Gallinas Valley Sanitary District (LGVSD)
- Las Gallinas Valley Sanitary District Non-Marching Band — www.sewerband.com
- Bay Area Hiker guide to LGVSD (dated, but good route suggestions)
- John F. McInnis Park
- McInnis Park Golf Center
- McInnis Skatepark profiled on The Skate Trip on YouTube
- RCCrawler.com
- Acme Nike Missile Site Guide
- Helen Vine Detox
- Water project could doom Cold War Nike missile site in San Rafael – Marin IJ, 3/18/2008
Nice hike, Joe. Who needs to fly half way around the planet to find exotic locations?
BTW, I’m having trouble w/ the captions on the viewer – only on this set. They’re getting truncated at both front and back ends of the text, what I guess would be about 700 pixels = the width of the Simpleviewer window.
Kent – indeed. What monitor resolution are you using? This particular gallery has an image that’s 975 pixels wide, which may be causing the issue.
Joe, never mind, my bad. Once I maximize the browser window, the text fits fine. But this is the first time I’ve had to do this…