For this marsh bird watching vaulted restroom, we worked with the John Muir Land Trust who is in a partnership to provide recreational opportunities for the Pacheco Marsh in Martinez, California. As part of providing more recreational opportunities the marsh bird watching vaulted restroom provides a restroom facility with limited site disruption and allows users to enjoy everything the Pacheco Marsh has to offer.
The Pacheco marsh underwent habitat restoration, along with creating passive recreation opportunities, like bird watching, so adding the restroom to this unique site was a welcome addition.
Martinez, California is a city in Contra Costa County, along with being the county seat near the San Francisco Bay and next to the Carquinez Straight.
Interstate 680 and State Route 4 go through Martinez. Oakland, California is 27 miles southwest of Martinez. Contra Costa County had a population of 1,165,927 in 2020, so the county has a large population. The county’s name refers to it being on the opposite side of the bay from San Francisco.
The Pacheco Marsh is a bird watching area in Martinez, where the Lower Walnut Creek flows. The site is a former 122-acre former tidal marsh located adjacent to the mouth of Lower Walnut Creek. This portion of the restoration project is a partnership between John Muir Land Trust and the Flood Control District of Contra Costa County.
Habitat Restoration Vaulted Restroom
The partnership’s goal for the site is to restore the degraded wetland habitat to historic tidal conditions and maximize habitat values while allowing for compatible recreational uses.
The Flood Control District is focusing on the habitat restoration as part of the greater Lower Walnut Creek Restoration project, while the Land Trust is focusing on providing passive recreation opportunities (such as bird watching) and long term stewardship.
Bird Watching Restroom
Bird watchers and outdoor enthusiasts can enjoy 2.4 miles of trails and bridges, including a wheelchair-accessible trail, offering up-close views of nature while protecting the marsh’s full-time wildlife residents. The kayak launch supports a unique 2-mile loop through the marsh, providing water lovers with an immersive, fascinating tour of the marsh and Suisun Bay.
Romtec provided a vaulted restroom for Pacheco Marsh with two ADA approved single user all gender restrooms. A vaulted restroom allows for the restroom to be utilized without a sewer line being placed at the site of the restroom, along with other utilities cutting down on the overall cost of the project.
The Romtec vaulted restroom has two single user restrooms with a storage space, Velux skylights, two 750 gallon polyethylene vaults, Hager door closers, two poly vents with vent boots and screens, Fabral metal roofing, cedar board and batt siding over CMU smooth face concrete block wall, kick resistant wall vent, fascia boards, wood posts with cedar privacy screen at entrance, American Laminators glulam beams, a Romtec polyethylene toilet riser, and roof overhang.
Handford ARC was the initial project driver for this project and a subconsultant to Restoration Design Group, who is the engineer. We have worked with Hanford ARC on a previous project in the bay area (Coyote Ridge OS Waterless Restroom).
John Muir Land Trust is the project owner and is a repeat customer. We have completed several projects with them over the years including the Jenner Headlands Vault Restroom.
Restoration Design Group is also a repeat customer, and we have been indirectly involved with several of their projects over the years. Restoration Design Group provides the planning, coordination, design and facilitation needed to reinvent and rehabilitate natural lands based in Berkely, California.
Kjeldsen, Sinnock and Neudeck, Inc. (KSN) was the general contractor. Handford ARC was the installation contractor for this project who constructed the restroom on behalf of John Muir Land Trust.
Vaulted Toilet Restroom
Handford ARC is a licensed general engineering & landscape contractor specializing in ecological restoration & heavy civil construction in environmental projects. (KSN), [HD1.1]specializes in the planning, design, and surveying for various civil engineering projects such as flood control, water utilities, water resources, amongst others projects.
The John Muir Land Trust mission is to protect and steward open space, ranches, farms, parks and shoreline in Contra Costa and Alameda Counties. The JLMT has protected 4,000 acres and created many beautiful places in East Bay that are permanently preserved for recreation and wildlife habitat.
This vaulted restroom building cuts down on the overall costs, as utilities weren’t needed or utilized. On top of that, when habitat restoration is going on, disruption of the soil or site was important, so this vaulted restroom was a great option as it limited the site disruption upon installation.
Vaulted toilets are a great option when water is scarce, and plumbing isn’t an option, while still needing a hygienic solution. We have vents throughout our vaulted toilets, along with our SST™ Sweet Smelling Technology, the restroom gets good airflow to keep smells at bay.
We have been designing vaulted toilets for decades and have found the sweet spot when it comes to creating an appealing vaulted restroom that meets all the needs of a project.
For this marsh bird watching vaulted restroom for the Pacheco Marsh in Martinez, California, the habitat restoration, along with walking trails, we designed a restroom that would blend in with the surroundings. We can design a vaulted restroom to match any surroundings or to match other buildings in any area.