San Rafael Creek

San Rafael Creek is a watercourse in Marin County, California, USA that discharges to San Rafael Bay, a small embayment of the San Francisco Bay. The mouth of San Rafael Creek is a channelized estuary through an industrial area. San Rafael Creek has a designation under Federal Law Section 303(d) as impaired by diazinon, the principal pollutant causing impairment designations for streams discharging to San Pablo Bay, which is the northern arm of San Francisco Bay. In September 2007, the organization Save The Bay designated San Rafael Creek as one of the top ten "worst trash hot spot" waterways flowing into the San Francisco Bay. The channel portion of San Rafael Creek below the Grand Street Bridge is dredged on a regular maintenance schedule to keep the shallow draft channel navigable. Dredge spoils are disposed of at a site near Alcatraz Island.

Most of the soils in the lower watershed are clays and bay mud, resulting in a low transmissivity of groundwater. Typical vertical soil profiles in the lower watershed are four to five feet of imported fill over 60 to 65 feet (18–20 meters) of bay mud set on a basement of Franciscan Sandstone bedrock. At the mouth of San Rafael Creek, situated on the south bank, is Pickleweed Park, where shorebirds can be seen, particularly in the winter migration season.

San Rafael

San Rafael (the Spanish-language name of the Archangel Raphael) is a common place-name in areas where that tongue is or was spoken:

Towns, cities, municipalities, etc.

San Rafael Department

San Rafael is one of the departments of Mendoza Province, Argentina. The seat of the department is in the city of San Rafael.

Statistics

Neighboring departments

Administration

The department is subdivided in 18 districts: Ciudad, El Cerrito, Cuadro Nacional, Las Malvinas District, El Sosneado (added in 2005, it used to belong to Cuadro Benegas, but then it was added as a district), Las Paredes, La Llave, Cuadro Benegas, Cuadro Nacional, Cañada Seca, Goudge, Jaime Prats, Monte Comán, Rama Caída, Real del Padre, Punta del Agua, Villa Atuel and Villa 25 de Mayo.

San Rafael, Chile

San Rafael is a town and commune of the Talca Province in the Maule Region of Chile. The town serves as the communal capital.

Demographics

According to the 2002 census of the National Statistics Institute, San Rafael spans an area of 263.5 km² (102 sq mi) and has 7,674 inhabitants (3,903 men and 3,771 women). Of these, 3,482 (45.4%) lived in urban areas and 4,192 (54.6%) in rural areas. The population grew by 6.5% (465 persons) between the 1992 and 2002 censuses.

Administration

As a commune, San Rafael is a third-level administrative division of Chile administered by a municipal council, headed by an alcalde who is directly elected every four years. The 2008-2012 alcalde is Patricio Poblete Yáñez (UDI).

Within the electoral divisions of Chile, San Rafael is represented in the Chamber of Deputies by Pablo Lorenzini (PDC) and Pedro Pablo Alvarez-Salamanca (UDI) as part of the 38th electoral district, (together with Curepto, Constitución, Empedrado, Pencahue, Maule, San Clemente, Pelarco and Río Claro). The commune is represented in the Senate by Juan Antonio Coloma Correa (UDI) and Andrés Zaldívar Larraín (PDC) as part of the 10th senatorial constituency (Maule-North).