West County Landfill Loop Trail

Photo by Dan Hill.

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Apr-Jun 2009

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by Ann Sieck

Few people visit the bayside marsh where Wildcat and San Pablo creeks end their long wandering across Richmond. Here a wetland rich with wildlife is framed by the Chevron refinery's plumes of steam in the south, fields of giant solar collectors to the east, and to the north, an immense hill made up of 25 years' worth of garbage that emits methane processed in noisy generators next to the trailhead. The trail currently allows only a 1.4-mile out-and-back trip, but a longer loop is planned. On our visit, we were never out of sight of earthmoving machinery toiling on the brown slopes, but the trail took us into a habitat valuable to many species, including ours.

Where the creeks merge in a wide lagoon, ducks dabbled in the shallows. We saw scaups and buffleheads in the creek channel, and sandpipers flew up from the lush seasonal marsh north of the trail. Point San Pablo rises across the water, with Mount Tamalpais looking very near behind it. A northern harrier flapped above us, no doubt hunting the ground squirrels that chattered from coyote brush along the trail. At high tide, a quarter-mile trail extends into open water; whitecaps slapping on rocks drown out the refinery's roar. Just beyond the gate that ends the public right-of-way, a blue heron that had been retreating before us returned to its fishing.

Getting there: From Richmond Parkway, go west on Parr Boulevard 0.2 mile past turns and speed bumps, keeping to the left and following signs for the Bay Trail, to the Landfill Loop staging area at the end. No toilet is provided; dogs not permitted.