Santee Awarded Major Grant for Mast Park Upgrade

Santee's Mast Park

The City of Santee has been awarded a grant of $1.2 million to aid in the redevelopment of Mast Park, including drainage, stormwater treatment and habitat improvements.

The grant reinforces the city’s commitment  be an integral part of a 52-mile-long river park and trail system envisioned to someday parallel the San Diego River from the Cuyamaca Mountains to the Pacific Ocean.

The funding was approved Nov. 13 by a unanimous vote of the board of the San Diego River Conservancy, a state agency charged with enhancing the river’s ecology and to help create the crest-to-coast trail. The grant funds originated from Proposition 1, a ballot measure approved by voters in November 2014 to pay for water infrastructure and ecosystem and watershed protection projects.

The grant awarded to Santee will supplement city funding earmarked for a $7.2 million project to upgrade facilities, parking and other amenities covering 31 acres of the park on the north side of the San Diego River. The city plans to begin engineering and design work in 2016.

The grant funds are specifically targeted to pay for water quality, habitat and public access improvements. These include:

·        Replanting 13 acres at the east end of the park with low-growing native vegetation to create a stormwater infiltration area;

·        Creating a dry retention basin to capture and treat stormwater runoff that enters the park from adjacent residential uses;

·        Re-grading the park to create a system of bioswales and vegetated creek beds to capture runoff, reduce flooding and improve drainage;  

·        Removing an existing asphalt path and replacing it with a pervious, decomposed granite surface;

·        Moving the trail away from the river and planting a vegetated buffer consisting of 5.1 acres of riparian habitat;

SD River Conservancy Improving Sycamore Creek

A worker removes arundo

A waterway clogged with the wrong type of non-native vegetation is a recipe for flooding, elevated risk for wildfire and diminished habitat value for wildlife.

That’s why the San Diego River Conservancy is spending $208,000 over the next few months to remove invasive plants from Sycamore Creek in the city of Santee.

The project, which started this week, requires heavy labor to remove the unwanted vegetation from several hundred feet of the creek bordering the Santee Lakes Recreation Preserve.

“One of the main reasons we’re doing it is for flood alleviation,” said Conservancy Executive Officer Kevin McKernan.

Flooding triggered by record rainfall in the winter of 2010-11 overwhelmed a sewage station next to the creek, resulting in a spill of contaminated water into the San Diego River, he noted.

This April, a wildfire that began in the riverbed at Mast Park West was fueled in part by dense stands of non-native plants, including a bamboo-like plant called arundo donax, also known as giant reed.

This week, a small army of workers has been using chain saws and hand tools to remove the unwanted vegetation, including arundo, castor bean plants, pepper trees, and more than 90 mature non-native palm trees.

Oceanside-based ACS Habitat is doing the work

“We’ve notified homeowners whose back yards border Sycamore Creek of our activities, and so far we’ve had positive responses from many,” McKernan reported.

A second phase of the project to clear a portion of the creek north of Mast Boulevard is planned for the future.

The project calls for follow-up abatement actions over the next two to three years involving cutting and spraying the previously cut sites to ensure the invasive plants don’t return.

New Trail Dedicated at Mast Park West

Nearly 40 people turned out May 11 for a ceremony dedicating a newly completed half-mile section of the San Diego River Trail at Mast Park West.

Mike Nelson of the San Diego River Conservancy celebrated Santee's partnerships that made the trail possible.

Many stayed after the ceremony for a guided walk led by Shannon Quigley, (center, in white) program coordinator for the San Diego River Park Foundation. Ms. Quigley gave an animated talk about the flora and fauna found along the path, which bisects a 43-acre habitat preserve the city obtained in 2009 from The Environmental Trust.

The trail, which cost $405,586 to construct and took six months to complete, was funded by a state grant obtained on behalf of Santee by the San Diego River Conservancy, a state agency.

The new trail connects with about 2.5 miles of existing riverfront paths in Santee.

Pedestrians and bicyclists can now travel along the San Diego River from the city’s western boundary at Carlton Oaks golf course to the center of the city at Town Center Community Park.



Four new interpretive signs provide
information about the River's natural habitat.



Jordan Richardson of Troop 51 displayed
one of the markers along the trail.
The medallions were donated by the
San Diego River Park Foundation
and were installed as part of
Richardson's Eagle Scout project.