The Guadalupe River is a short river in California that runs from the Santa Cruz Mountains flowing north through San Jose, California, and emptying into the San Francisco Bay at Alviso. The river's course is contained completely in Santa Clara County.
The river is the home to the only known salmonspawning run through a major U.S . downtown area (with the exception of Anchorage, Alaska). However, the salmon run is considered endangered, so fishing for them is illegal. Additionally, due to the mercury contamination in the river water, eating other types of fish caught from the Guadalupe River is actively discouraged.
In 1777, Mission Santa Clara de Asis and el Pueblo de San José de Guadalupe were founded along the river, but both had to be moved away from the river because of mosquitos in the summertime and flooding during the winter. The river occasionally floods in downtown San Jose as well as in Alviso, with floods in 1995 and 1997 being declared National Disaster Areas by President Clinton. A major flood control project, designed to control a 100 year flood, is scheduled to be competed in December, 2004.
Guadalupe River flood control project (http://www.spk.usace.army.mil/civ/guadalupe/), U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
Fuller, Amanda; Addressing the Environmental Mercury Problem in Watersheds: Remediation in the Guadalupe River Watershed, San Jose, California (http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~es196/projects/2002final/Fuller.pdf) (PDF); University of California, Berkley; 2002.
External links
Guadalupe River Park and Gardens website (http://www.grpg.org)
Because of widespread interest in ecosystem effects associated with historic mercury mining within and downgradient of the Guadalupe Riverwatershed, transfer of mercury to lower trophic-level organisms was examined.
Ancillary data, including dissolved organic carbon and trace-metal concentrations as well as vertical profiles of temperature, dissolved oxygen, specific conductance and pH, were gathered to provide a water-quality framework from which to compare the results for mercury.
It is worth reemphasizing that this data set represents a single “snap shot” of conditions in water bodies within the GuadalupeRiver watershed to: (1) fill gaps in trophic transfer information, and (2) provide a scientific basis for future process-based studies with enhanced temporal and spatial coverage.
The GuadalupeRiver is a short river in California that runs from the Santa Cruz Mountains flowing north through San Jose, California, and emptying into the San Francisco Bay at Alviso.
The entire 3 mile downtown stretch, from Interstate 280 to Interstate 880, is part of the GuadalupeRiver Park and Gardens, one of the largest urban parks currently in development in the United States.
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