Why Memorial Park?
Anybody looking at the geography of the upper Ross Valley can see where the watershed derives most of its volume. Deer Park, Cascade Canyon, Tamarancho, White Hill, Loma Alta, and Sleepy Hollow all dump into the Corte Madera Creek basin, aiming right at downtown San Anselmo. None of this water goes anywhere near Memorial Park, and is significantly downhill from that potential detention basin. The idea, the engineers say, is to detain runoff from the Sorich Ranch area. Meanwhile, the largest volume of rainwater will still be heading downstream toward San Anselmo Avenue.
How does this make any sense? The Marin Town and Country Club eastern acreage is a vernal meadow, yet, as private property, it cannot be incorporated in water detention strategies without the landowner’s cooperation. What about Drake High? Dig out under the parking lot (and the fields, partly?) and create a concrete catch basin for both the Sleepy Hollow flood-water and the larger flow from the Lansdale bridge area, leaving “rooftop” parking at ground level, as it exists now.
Modern catacombs, in a manner of speaking, which might prove interesting acoustically, etc., when not “in use.”
Hobart Bartshire
