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Phoenix will start park job this year Photo from city of Phoenix This is the plan for a 25-acre park along Bear Creek planned for south of downtown Phoenix. The former gravel storage area will feature ponds, a bike trail and amphitheater. Wetlands, trails add to greenway By WENDY SIPOREN PHOENIX -- The dream of a 25-acre park along Bear Creek will begin to take shape this summer when crews begin removing tons of dirt from a blackberry-infested site between Highway 99 and I-5, just south of downtown. The dirt removal will make way for an 11-acre natural area on the east side of Bear Creek. Constructed ponds and wetlands will provide a habitat for wildlife and a backdrop for a bicycle loop. Photo by Jim Craven Phoenix parks commissioner Jim Woltanski walks through a brushy area slated for wetlands and recreational features. The west bank will eventually be developed as a park with a community center, an amphitheater, tennis and basketball courts as well as parking. At least one bridge will connect the two sections. The Bear Creek Greenway is also scheduled to snake through the park, filling in a six-mile gap between Medford and Talent. "It's going to be a wonderful introduction to Phoenix rather than Highway 99," said Plato Doundoulakis of Atlas Environmental, who has been hired to oversee the wetlands construction. The land, formerly a Jackson County gravel storage area, was given to the city in 1994. Since then, parks commissioners have settled on a design and have been actively seeking funding for both sections of the park. Construction of the wetlands is scheduled to begin in June, with planting this fall and next spring. If all goes well, the wetlands should be thriving by the summer of 2000, said Doundoulakis. A $10,000 "Jobs in the Woods" grant from U.S. Fish and Wildlife has been spent for riparian restoration, tree planting and blackberry removal. The project is getting another $25,000 from the same source this year. In addition, the U.S. Department of Environmental Quality has granted $25,000 for pollution control. While the $50,000 isn't enough to complete the project, city planner Denis Murray says several private donors have pledged funds to the park project and several Phoenix businesses will donate materials and labor. Project planners also hope to have enough money to begin grading for the west-bank section of the park this year. In addition to providing wildlife habitat, the goal of the wetlands is to clean and cool agricultural runoff from nearby orchards and pastures before it returns to the creek, says Doundoulakis. He says wetlands projects such as this one can help prevent environmental disasters similar to the one when an herbicide used by the Talent Irrigation District leaked into Bear Creek, killing thousands of fish. The site is at the end of one of the Medford Irrigation District's canals. During rainstorms, water from the canal can flow through a spillway to Bear Creek. Irrigation district manager Carol Bradford says she supports the idea of treating runoff, but that any official use of irrigation district water would have to be approved by her board of directors and the state water resources commission. Parks commissioner Jim Woltanski is excited about the potential impact of the wetlands on the health of Bear Creek. "This is a very juicy project," said Woltanski. "It's a magnet for planners across the area." "(Wetlands) are not useless dismal swamps," he says. "This is all brand-new science -- can you re-create this perfect machine that moves water and processes biomass so perfectly?" "It will always be an urban stream corridor," says Woltanski, referring to the Bear Creek valley. "But we can make it nicer than it is." Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA