Play Ball! But Where?

By Carla Din

 

It’s been over two years since the Oakland A’s proposed building a new baseball stadium alongside Lake Merritt. Golden Gate Bird Alliance led the environmental opposition to this proposal that threatened to undermine the progress made in reconnecting Lake Merritt to the Bay and providing healthy habitat for waterbirds there.  It was gratifying to see GGBA partner with other community opponents of the Lake Merritt site, including Laney College students and faculty unions and the Asian Pacific Environmental Network that were concerned about gentrification to surrounding cultural communities.

In December 2017, the Peralta Community College District responded to the strong opposition and nixed plans for a ballpark on Laney College land near Lake Merritt. The A’s then shifted their focus to another site – Howard Terminal alongside the Port of Oakland, next to the Oakland-Alameda Estuary.

(INSERT A MAP GRAPHIC THAT SHOWS THE HOWARD TERMINAL LOCATION AND POSSIBLY A DRAWING OF BALLPARK)

This waterside site also presents potential dangers to wildlife. Like many other ballparks, possible hazards include:

• Bright scoreboard lights and parking/security lights that can disrupt birds’ sleep patterns, facilitate nocturnal predation, and disrupt night foraging. Migratory bird behavior is radically impacted by light sources such as stadiums, according to a University of Oxford study
• Glass walls located next to large bodies of water or green space can cause fatal bird collisions. Since birds cannot see reflective glass as a barrier, they fly into that which is reflected by the window, such as the sky or the trees and collide with the glass
• Noise from crowds, traffic, public address systems, and amplified music can frighten birds away from their habitat and into roadways.
• Fireworks can panic birds and sometimes lead them to abandon their nests and young. The Port of Oakland discontinued its annual 4th of July fireworks show over Jack London Square after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ruled that fireworks displays would harm the Least Tern, an endangered species that nests across the estuary in Alameda.
• Plastic and other trash dropped into waterways that can kill birds who eat it or get tangled in it.

(place doug’s photo of shorebirds here)

 

GGBA Enters the Policy Arena

In 2018, to streamline the A’s ballpark development process, State Assembly member Rob Bonta proposed a measure limiting the time during which environmental lawsuits could be filed against an A’s ballpark at Howard Terminal. When GGBA got wind of his bill, Assembly Bill 734, we sprang into action. We were concerned about expediting important environmental review for an immense development project where specific impacts were not yet known, unlike the current Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum that sits on 120 acres of already-disturbed land.

Rather than fight this special-favors bill that enjoyed significant political support, we used the legislative process to strengthen safeguards for our feathered friends.

In July 2018, GGBA and community allies met with Bonta’s chief of staff, who welcomed our participation. We spoke with him about the risks to wildlife of an ill-conceived sports stadium. We used as an example the new Minnesota Vikings’ stadium, where gross design errors have resulted in countless bird deaths and a political nightmare.

Photo: Audubon Chapter of Minnesota (photo credit title: A dead bird is found outside of U.S. Bank Stadium in Minnesota.)

GGBA shared a copy of the American Bird Conservancy’s Bird-Friendly Building Design handbook, which offers developers and architects detailed information on designing structures that minimize bird deaths.

We pointed to the City of Oakland’s Bird-Safety Measures, spearheaded by GGBA and adopted in 2013 by Oakland’s Planning Department. The measures emphasize structures next to large bodies of water such as the Oakland Estuary, but they are guidelines, not mandatory requirements. Codifying them into law would ensure that a new sports complex would be built to bird-friendly standards.

Photo: Doug Mosher

Our recommendations to add bird-safe measure requirements to Assembly Bill 734 were met openly. After several go-rounds, we reached consensus on the amendments and made it through to the finish line for a significant policy win.

Innovative Design Strategies

In September 2018, Governor Brown signed Assembly Bill 734 that requires, as a condition of project approval, that design and implementation comply with the City of Oakland’s Bird Safety Measures. Nighttime programming will apply “best management practice strategies” for avoiding and reducing potential collision hazards for migratory and resident birds.

These approaches could include state-of-the-art sustainability design, such as:

• Proven window treatments that birds can see yet are transparent to humans.
• Using lower-mounted light fixtures, and high-efficiency field lighting with baffles and shields to mitigate the effect of bright field lighting.
• Replacing traditional fireworks with laser fireworks that are quieter, safer and environmentally friendlier.

Ornilux Bird-Friendly Glass Project, 2175 Market Street, San Francisco, CA

 

Major Hurdles Facing Howard Terminal

So here we are, two years down the line from the defeat of the original Lake Merritt ballpark plan. A’s management, Oakland residents, and conservationists alike now await release of the city’s Howard Terminal Project environmental impact report covering a new ballpark, transportation, hotel and retail, and 4,000 units of housing on the 50-acre site, which would in theory open in 2023.

The Howard Terminal site will face major hurdles of infrastructure financing, strong opposition by Port of Oakland stakeholders, climate change risks, and underground hazardous waste.

We at Golden Gate Bird Alliance are pleased that AB 734 offers some protections for birds and the estuary habitat. But we continue to believe that the existing Coliseum site is a better choice for a new ballpark. It’s already developed for sports: wetlands along San Leandro Bay were sacrificed to build the Coliseum in the 1960s.

The Coliseum site could become a thriving ballpark village that would serve as an economic engine for East Oakland. It’s adjacent to BART, which makes access easy and would reduce the auto emissions and carbon footprint of baseball fans. Finally, redeveloping the existing ballpark site would minimize new impacts on biodiversity.

Building a new stadium at the existing site would be a win both for A’s fans and for wildlife. Now that would be pennant worthy!

 

 

Carla Din is a recent graduate of the GGBA-California Academy of Sciences Master Birding course, Class of 2019, and a former member of GGBA’ Conservation Committee. Her totem bird is the Belted Kingfisher.