SANTA ROSA
Kids dig in for watershed
Organization involves schoolchildren in its efforts to heal languishing land by restoring native plants, creek beds
Glen Martin, Chronicle Environment WriterFriday, March 2, 2007
No one has more to gain from a better environment than kids, and they're more than willing to do their share -- especially if it involves flailing around in dirt.
That was obvious recently along Matanzas Creek in Santa Rosa's Doyle Park, where second-graders from the city's Brook Hill Elementary School burned a vast number of calories replacing non-native plants with indigenous shrubs.
Their efforts were part of Students and Teachers Restoring A Watershed, or STRAW, a project of Novato-based environmental group the Bay Institute. In the past nine years, STRAW has involved more than 10,000 students in watershed-restoration projects in Marin, Sonoma and Napa counties. They have planted about 20,000 native plants and restored about 55,000 feet of creek banks at 173 sites.
The Bay Institute's program is part of a growing regional trend: recruiting children and teens for ambitious habitat-restoration projects. Other groups involved in such work include PRBO Conservation Science, LandPaths and Save the Bay.
The mission at Matanzas Creek was relatively straightforward: First, they dug up the English ivy and vinca -- landscape plants that have escaped the confines of Santa Rosa's suburban yards and invaded creeks. The children then planted native bushes that make good habitat, such as California rose, snowberry, thimbleberry, honeysuckle and Dutchman's pipevine.
"Matanzas Creek actually has an excellent canopy of mature timber," John Parodi, a watershed education coordinator for the Bay Institute, said as he surveyed the big oaks, alders and laurels surrounding the creek.
"It's the secondary canopy of native shrubs that's missing," he said. "The ivy and the vinca choke everything out. This project will help turn things around."
The kids were rapt as Parodi and other supervisors explained the day's activities, including a tutorial in identifying and pulling ivy and vinca.
Another education coordinator, Emily Allen, showed the children how to dig holes of the appropriate size, remove the native shrubs from their pots, and plant them. She passed around tubes of "dry water" -- a gel that slowly provides water to the root zones of new plantings.
Then they turned the kids loose.
Max Meislahn, 8, was intrigued by a tube of dry water that he had been given for one his plants.
"That thing is so slimy," he said. "I like it 'cause I like slimy things. My favorite is Jell-O -- I like to eat it."
Another child screamed "YAHHHHH!" as he pounded at the soil with his shovel.
Many of the kids understood the larger implications of their work.
"I just love planting stuff," said Erika Brown, 8. "It's helping nature, and we're all out here, working together and having fun."
Brita Dempsey, who also works for the Bay Institute, said kids bring a unique skill set to restoration projects.
"We also have adults working with us, and they're good at ripping out big areas of ivy and vinca on the first go-through," Dempsey said. "But to be effective, you have to keep coming through the project areas to remove new sprouts. The kids are really good at that, better than the grown-ups. They're more methodical, more willing to spend the time needed to find and root up every shoot."
Grant Davis, executive director of the Bay Institute, said the program started 15 years ago with a pilot project on a ranch along Stemple Creek west of Petaluma. The goal was to restore a native freshwater shrimp to the area. The 2-inch-long crustaceans were on the brink of extinction because the willow trees that shelter them had been trampled and devoured by livestock.
"From a habitat perspective, it was a catastrophe," Davis said.
Rancher Paul Martin installed fencing to prevent cattle from entering the creek bed, and the kids planted willows. It will take many more years to tell whether the shrimp have recovered, but the project already has yielded profound ancillary benefits.
"We've found that at least 28 bird species now inhabit our restored creek sites," Davis said. "For many of the areas, that's up from zero."
Funding for the program, which at about $500,000 a year makes up roughly a third of the Bay Institute's budget, comes from a variety of sources, including government and community grants.
"I don't know how to say this so it doesn't sound like a cliche, but this is the best investment we can make," Davis said. "The students who do this work are deeply affected by it. The things they learn stay with them."
Kate O'Mara, a STRAW volunteer who helped with the Doyle Creek event, provides some support for Davis' contention. O'Mara was a 9-year-old at San Anselmo's Wade Thomas Elementary School when she participated in the original Stemple Creek project in 1993.
"Three years ago, my fourth-year class had a reunion, and we went out to Stemple Creek," O'Mara said. "I remember it had been totally bare. When we returned, it was thick with willows. It gave us such a good feeling, knowing we had done that."
She paused as she helped a child tamp dirt around a shrub.
"That's what this program does," she said. "It gives kids a chance to make a difference."
E-mail Glen Martin at glenmartin@sfchronicle.com.
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This article appeared on page B - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle
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