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It’s Priceless, but We Still Need to Raise $151,000

Krane Pond is one of the largest ponds on the north side of Mount Diablo State Park.

It’s incredibly important for wildlife. And for kids in Clayton, or who are visiting Mount Diablo State Park in the future who will get muddy there.

Over the last 150 years, ponds were built everywhere in California.

Whether by shovel or bulldozer, someone would knock soil down to dam a creek and create a pond, usually for cattle or other livestock.

They’ve become incredibly important for wildlife too, especially as development has impacted areas downstream. Rarely are they as big as Krane Pond, and most of them didn’t involve much engineering.

With permits, modern engineering, and current safety standards, they’re really expensive to create now—Krane Pond is a bargain. And in the time of climate change, they’re more and more important.

Every time we protect a pond—Save Mount Diablo has protected hundreds—it’s a victory for wildlife. Krane Pond is priceless and worth every penny. Wildlife visits from miles around.

When I’m checking out the resources of a new property, I check out the water first, ponds, creeks—you see more, and there are many more kinds of plants and animals.

Water—it was the same thing that attracted Native Americans. We know because there’s a historic Indian mound nearby.

The same thing that attracted the Russellmann family, who built their house in the neighboring canyon.

The same thing that attracted our co-founder botanist Mary Bowerman in the 1930s, who included the properties there on our earliest priority list in 1972. The same thing that attracted Walt and Roseann Krane. The same thing that attracted me.

In 2005, we were working with two sisters to protect their 20-acre Young Canyon property. It’s above Krane Pond, next to Mount Diablo State Park and the Concord Mt. Diablo Trail Ride Association property, in what we call the “Missing Mile.”

The Missing Mile is a square-mile section of land on the slopes of North Peak that stands out on Mount Diablo State Park maps.

We found several rare plants in the creek there, including most beautiful jewel flower (Streptanthus glandulosus ssp. glandulosus), and I wanted to see how the unnamed creek connected down to Mount Diablo Creek. Krane Pond is our fourth acquisition in the “Missing Mile.”

Luckily the creek is near the border off the state park boundary, which drops north. I still remember it was getting dark as I bushwhacked downstream.

I came over the hill and there it was—the largest pond I’d seen on Diablo’s north side, in a wooded canyon, dark but reflecting the sky.

It was unusual too because the pond was split three ways by barbed wire fences, overlapping three different private properties. Most of it is on the Krane property. It was a small property, but I knew then I’d work to protect it.

Whenever we buy a new property, the neighboring ones get more attention because assembling neighboring properties protects resources and wildlife corridors better.

Krane had been on our acquisition lists forever, but we started paying closer attention—“Tena Gallagher knows Walt and Roseann Krane. They’re teachers who live in Danville . . .”

Seventeen years later, Walt passed away. A mutual friend let us know that the property was about to be available. We signed an option agreement with Roseann.

We learned more about the pond they originally called a lake—at one time it was 25 feet deep. They had a dock there, and a little sailboat.

I saw Roseann at our Moonlight on the Mountain fundraiser recently. Walt used to donate his paintings for our auction. The name of the pond on our future maps will honor their family forever.

So far we’ve raised $349,000 of the $500,000 project cost. We still need to raise the remaining $151,000, ideally by October 25 when we must either exercise our second option agreement, or lose the property. Please help.

Blog post updated on October 11, 2023.

Top photo by Gerry Dincher / CC BY-SA