Los recorridos en kayak ponen de relieve la restauración del río San José.

Years of neglect and festering pollution problems have left San Jose’s Guadalupe River with a toxic reputation among locals. But one former councilmember says the best days are still to come for the long-benighted waterway — and he’s leading by example.

Local entrepreneur Carl Salas has been waging a quiet crusade over the past decade to restore the Guadalupe River’s good name by leading brief kayak tours on the 14-mile-long river that winds through the heart of San Jose. He wants to help more residents see the Guadalupe and surrounding park areas the way he sees them — as a slice of natural tranquility that could one day be a major downtown attraction.

It’s a pitch that has seemed at times far-fetched to residents who have witnessed homeless encampments proliferate along the river’s embankments over the years — a societal problem that comes with persistent trash and illegal dumping, creating squalid conditions that have long repelled visitors.

But Salas said conditions along the river have mejorada over just the past year, amid a massive cleanup effort that has seen hundreds of tons of refuse removed from the water. Now, his message is finding a more receptive audience.

“(In the past) I’d tell them in advance, ‘You have to wear your rose-colored glasses’ because it’s at once beautiful, but it’s also an embarrassment,” Salas, founder of engineering and technical services firm Salas O’Brien, told San José Spotlight. “It’s disgusting. It’s a cesspool — but it’s really cool now.”

Salas — who briefly served as District 3 councilmember last year following the departure of disgraced former Councilmember Omar Torres — has already taken steps to ratchet up his charm offensive on behalf of the Guadalupe.

Earlier this month, Salas partnered with District 6 Councilmember Michael Mulcahy’s office to host a kayak tour event that drew more than 100 people to the river embankment across from the SAP Center. Dozens ventured out onto the Guadalupe’s calm waters, paddling through a brief circuit running from the West Santa Clara Street bridge to where the river converges with Los Gatos Creek.

Salas said he hopes that as more people see the Guadalupe’s potential as a downtown getaway and venue for public events, these efforts will generate a virtuous cycle of increased interest that will further fuel preservation efforts.

“It’s a billion-dollar asset right here that people have been looking away from for six, 10, 20 years,” he said.

Salas had his own “ah-ha” moment about six years ago while listening to a presentation on efforts to clean up the Los Angeles River. At one point, someone floated the idea of hosting kayak tours along the famously polluted waterway.

If it could work there, Salas thought, perhaps it could here, too.

“I went down to Dick’s Sporting Goods and bought a kayak — I’d never had a kayak — and I threw it in the river,” he said. “And it’s like — this is beautiful. There’s turtles and beavers, and this is downtown.”

But the Guadalupe’s longstanding reputation for pollution may be hard to shake.

When Mulcahy uploaded a video of a kayak outing on the river to Instagram in June, the post generated hundreds of incredulous comments from residents, many of whom expressed strident doubts about the water’s safety.

“No one actually from San Jose would go near that water,” wrote one commenter.

But Mulcahy pushed back, suggesting that given the conservation gains of the past year, such views are out of date.

“I just say to those people, give us another shot,” Mulcahy told San José Spotlight. “Come out and see for yourself how beautiful that setting is — the perspective of San Jose that most of those people probably have never seen before.”

San Jose designated the area around Guadalupe River as a “sin zona de campamento” in 2024, meaning the city may carry out sweeps of homeless camps there without the typical 72-hour notice.

Conservation advocates said the precipitous drop in homeless encampments that followed, combined with tens of thousands of cleanup hours from volunteers and city workers, have transformed the area — and even led to a resurgence of native salmon populations.

“I wouldn’t drink the water, but I would say it’s come a long way from where it was,” Steve Holmes, founder and executive director of the South Bay Clean Creeks Coalition, which has been involved in the cleanup effort, told San José Spotlight.

Holmes applauded Salas’ kayak tours, and expressed hope the growing interest in the Guadalupe could help to open a new chapter in its winding history.

“It’s our town,” Holmes said. “I think that having the ability to see the story of reclamation and these fish coming back each year, and numbers increasing, and making the community aware that we have this resource in our backyard — I think it’s a positive play.”

Comuníquese con Keith Menconi a través de [email protected] o @KeithMenconi en X.