Dying lawn at this SLO County park will be brown, crunchy for July 4 festivities
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- The park’s lawn will be brown and crunchy for this year’s July 4 festivities.
- County and State Parks reviewed proposed pump repairs, delaying the recovery timeline.
- Splitting the county’s proposal into two projects lets well replacement proceed sooner.
If timing is everything, then the issue of the dried-out, dying grass at Cambria’s Shamel Park couldn’t have hit at a worse moment.
Within the past week, however, the situation keeping the lawn in limbo may have been at least partially resolved, Dan Falat, superintendent of the state park units in San Luis Obispo County, told The Tribune on Saturday.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that the solution can happen in time to have lush green grass at the park for the community’s annual Fourth of July festivities on Saturday, but hopefully the recovery will happen in time to save at least some of the sod.
This year’s Independence Day Picnic in the Park, honoring the nation’s 250th birthday, will happen from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Shamel, but it will be held on crunchy, brown grass.
The event includes classic kids’ games and contests, the waiter/waitress race, a pie-eating contest, dancing, barbecue, family picnics and more at the celebration revitalized by the town’s Chamber of Commerce in the mid-1980s and carried forward since then by American Legion Post No. 432.
As has been the case for the past couple of years, there won’t be a fireworks display, and there are strict bans on private use of illegal fireworks. The park’s pool will be open from to 1-5 p.m.
However, Shamel Park itself is much more than Picnic in the Park. It’s also a cherished community asset for year-round weddings, quinceañeras, barbecues, reunions and other family gatherings and is the town’s only grassy public spot available to all ages for such activities as playing soccer, frisbee and other recreational fun.
What’s happening behind the scenes to get Shamel Park’s grass green again
As the national holiday draws closer, the turf discussions escalated to the upper echelons of protective state government.
Sen. John Laird has been among those working toward a quicker resolution.
“Shamel Park is such a lovely place — and a popular destination for people and families in the Cambria region and beyond. It’s a shame that the grass is dying, especially around the Fourth of July when people want to use the park and adjacent beach the most,” he said in a statement provided June 26 to The Tribune.
“My hope and expectation is that we can get the water pump fixed quickly and bring the park back to its glory — and we’ll work with State Parks to help support this outcome,” he said.
It’s the same at the county level, according to incoming Supervisor Jim Dantona, whose district will include the Shamel and Hearst San Simeon State parks. “It’s not simple, even though common sense tells us it should be,” he said June 23 by phone.
“They are allowing us to fix the pump,” the supervisor-to-be said of the state. “Shamel’s a great community asset, and the delay is terrible. Our parks people really want to get this done. Franco’s been very responsive to us, but this one isn’t just a matter of saying ‘Yeah, fix what’s there, and we’ll be done.’”
As for County Parks, that agency “appreciates the work California State Parks and our local partners have done to find a path forward for replacing the pump at Shamel Park,” Tanya Richardson, director of the county’s Parks & Recreation, said via email Tuesday.
“The pump is essential to restoring the turf, and we know how important Shamel Park is to the Cambria community,” she said. “We’re committed to continuing to work together to complete this routine maintenance as quickly as possible,”
What’s the holdup been, and how are they working around it?
In this case, the routine maintenance of replacing a faulty pump was one thing. Redoing and/or reconstructing a building was another. Elements of the latter include replacing a roof, providing foundational supports and other fixes, according to Falat.
The interim measure “for a county project on state parks property” appears to be splitting those two elements into separate projects, he said by phone Saturday and a follow-up email Monday.
“It was not as simple as just replacing a pump,” he said while praising the relationship between the two agencies. “We work very well together, (but) we have different missions. Nobody’s working in a vacuum, but we have to go through these processes transparently, meeting all the legalities.”
He explained further.
“On June 19, State Parks was advised that County Parks would like to postpone the requested project and only undertake maintenance and repair of in-kind replacement of the pump and other existing well components,” Falat said.
“State Parks reviewed County Parks’ proposed maintenance to ensure it was compliant with the existing easement, and on Friday, June 28, State Parks received official notification from the county, as required by the easement. The timeline for the replacement has not yet been determined by the county,” he said.
Why has there been such a delay?
What appeared at first glance to be a simple Legion request to replace a non-working pump and redo the building around it evolved into a more major project approval process than anticipated.
Adjacent land ownership, long-established use and habitat protection were at odds, it seemed.
San Luis Obispo County has owned the park for many decades and renamed it for Realtor Ray Shamel in the early 1970s. The park’s next-door neighbor is the 32-acre Santa Rosa Creek Natural Preserve area, part of Hearst San Simeon State Park, both owned and controlled by State Parks.
“The county does have an easement for the well from approximately 1960,” Falat said, and the creek area “has been a designated natural preserve since 1990.”
Likewise, portions of the San Simeon Creek corridor also have a natural preserve designation.
According to the State Parks Foundation website, those preserves are distinct, non-altered (by humans, at least) areas within larger state parks.
The designation exists to protect rare and often fragile flora, fauna and ecological features in a “condition of undisturbed integrity” while still accommodating carefully managed public enjoyment.
State Parks enforces that designation, and in doing so, each level of human intervention requires different levels of controls.
