Coyote Creek (Santa Clara County) - Watershed

Watershed

Although it is called a "creek", Coyote Creek is actually a river draining 320 square miles (830 km2) and running 63.6 miles (102.4 km) from the confluence of its East Fork and Middle Fork to southeast San Francisco Bay. The river's main source is on Mount Sizer near Henry W. Coe State Park and the surrounding hills in the Diablo Range, northeast of Morgan Hill, California. At the base of the Diablo Range, the creek is impounded by two dams, first Coyote Reservoir and then Anderson Reservoir. Nine major tributaries lie within the area that drains to these two reservoirs: Canada de los Osos, Hunting Hollow, Dexter Canyon, and Larios Canyon Creeks drain to Coyote Reservoir; Otis Canyon, Packwood, San Felipe, Las Animas, and Shingle Valley Creeks drain to Anderson Reservoir. Coyote Reservoir Dam was built across the active 1000-ft wide trace of the Calaveras fault by the Santa Clara Valley Water District (SCVWD) between 1934–36, storing 10,000 acre feet (12,000,000 m3) of water. From Anderson Reservoir Coyote Creek continues from Morgan Hill through Coyote into San Jose. As Coyote Creek forms the eastern boundary of downtown San Jose, it winds its way into North San Jose. There, Miguelita Creek, Penitencia Creek, and Berryessa Creek are all tributaries. Coyote Creek then bypasses the Newby Island landfill and empties into the San Francisco Bay.

There is a chain of parks along Coyote Creek called the Coyote Creek Park Chain. The feasibility of a trail connecting the parks within this chain to Almaden Park was first examined in 1989.

The river is managed by the SCVWD. In 1983, torrential rains caused by el Niño resulted in significant flooding of Coyote Creek in the Alviso neighborhood. The SCVWD, with advice from Santa Clara Basin Watershed Management Initiative (WMI) stakeholders, produced a stream stewardship plan for the Coyote Creek watershed in 2002. The plan includes over sixty projects to benefit flood protection, habitat enhancement, parks, and trails.

The Silver Creek Fault runs generally parallel to Coyote Creek.