City working to make Mill Creek safer for ducks
| Friday, Sep 03 2010 05:00 PM
Last Updated Friday, Sep 03 2010 05:00 PM
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Juliana Brenier Dooley, left, a downtown business owner, is upset and concerned about the one of four ducklings left in Mill Creek as it swims with two female mallards Friday. Dooley says that three other ducklings recently drowned in an area of Mill Creek near 17th Street where the creek flows rather quickly past a grate that catches debris.
This is only one of four ducklings left after three drowned in Mill Creek, according to Juliana Bernier Dooley, owner of Juliana’s Art Gallery downtown.
When four ducklings hatched a few weeks ago near a tiny pond at Juliana's Art Gallery downtown, owner Juliana Bernier Dooley soon fell in love with the baby waterfowl.
The Bakersfield artist fed them and watched them grow in her shaded yard on 18th Street. Then when the ducklings were old enough, their feathered mother led them single file down the street to Mill Creek where they could swim in the water that flows year-round through the landscaped parkway.
All was well, Bernier Dooley said, until the ducklings started disappearing.
The water level has recently dropped in the stream and on Thursday, Bernier Dooley watched horrified as one of the ducklings was sucked under at the upstream edge of a weir near the 17th Street bridge.
The duckling never came back up for air. Bernier Dooley believes several birds have been trapped against the upstream side of the weir, which lets water flow through adjustable gates well below the surface.
"This is a death trap," Bernier Dooley said as she stood beside Mill Creek on Thursday. "These baby ducks are drowning."
Only days before, there had been two mother ducks and nine ducklings, she said. By Thursday, the mother ducks were still there -- but only one duckling was left.
"I'm passionate about this," said the gallery owner, on the verge of tears. "It's absolutely horrible."
She was not comforted by her first phone call to the city's parks department.
"I was told 'This is nature and we let nature take its course,'" she said.
But it's not nature, she argued. It is a man-made structure.
By late Thursday afternoon, the complaint had been referred to Bakersfield Water Resources Manager Art Chianello, who drove to the site Friday to see for himself.
"This is not the normal operation of the canal," he said after inspecting the weir Friday. "The normal operation is for water to pour over the top of the weir."
The water in Mill Creek, which is essentially a beautifully landscaped irrigation canal, is owned by Kern Delta Water Storage District, said Chianello. As summer farming season begins to wind down, the district is drawing less water into the canal -- about 125 cubic feet per second less -- than it was one week ago.
It's his department's job to manage the flow of water in the Mill Creek Parkway, Chianello said. Staffers will reduce the flow of water through the weir gates below the surface so more water backs up and it again begins to flow over the top of the weirs.
These adjustments should be made periodically throughout the year.
"We do it all the time in the river," he said.
The problem at the 17th Street bridge is related but not identical to a similar problem seen occasionally at another weir just north of 19th Street at Central Park. When water flows over the weir at that location, ducklings have been stuck on the lower side of the small waterfall the weir creates.
The city is already working on a solution.
"We have hired a consulting engineer to work on a concept for a duck ladder," Chianello said. The idea is to provide a ramp to allow ducks caught in the lower pool to escape.
It's more common than one might expect for waterfowl to be negatively affected when municipalities engineer structures to control the flow of water, Chianello said.
"We refer to it as 'unintended consequences.'"
