By Jason Green / Daily News Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Kneeling on the ground, sixth-graders Wyatt Eberspacher and Eric Cheng gently lowered a young seedling into a freshly dug hole.
"Hurry, Wyatt," 12-year-old Eric urged, a handful of mulch at the ready.
The two were among 44 Jane Lathrop Stanford Middle School students who spent Tuesday morning restoring native vegetation in the Palo Alto Baylands Nature Preserve. The planting coordinated by Save the Bay, a regional conservation organization, also marked the 500th project sponsored by Restore America's Estuaries and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration through its Restoration Program.
"None of this can happen without your help," Patrick Rutten, a supervisor with NOAA's Southwest Restoration Center, told the students. "If there's one message to take away today, it's that you kids are making a difference."
Since 2001, roughly 6,000 volunteers like Wyatt and Eric have planted more than 30,000 native plants at the mouth of San Francisquito Creek, where Tuesday's project took place. More than 40,000 students regionwide have participated in the organization's Watershed Education Program, which teaches children about the history and ecology of the area.
Save the Bay is one of 11 members of Restore America's Estuaries, an organization that coordinates efforts nationwide to preserve wetland and coastal habitats. NOAA grants the estuaries organization about $1.5 million annually which is then distributed among the members. Save the Bay should receive about $125,000 this year.
That money typically isn't granted until the members raise the same amount or more in matching funds, said Mark Wolf-Armstrong, executive director of Restore America's Estuaries. Most times, those groups raise between $3 and $5 for every dollar they receive from the estuaries organization.
That arrangement allows the federal government's dollar to go further, Rutten said. "The federal government doesn't do anything," he joked with the students. "It only provides the resources to make things happen."
Collectively, the 11 members of the estuaries organization have raised more than $20 million for local restoration projects, restored over 96,000 acres of wetland habitat and 3,000 miles of fish habitat, and mobilized more than 250,000 volunteers.
The meadow barley seedlings planted by the JLS students are expected, over time, to replace the non-native grasses that cover the area, Wyatt said. And that's good for a number of reasons. Healthy wetland areas store potentially harmful greenhouse gases and, he said, they provide tranquil places for families to visit.
"We want to save the ecosystem. In the San Francisco Bay (Area), the non-natives are putting stress on the natives," Wyatt said, pausing to brush off his dirt-caked hands. "Basically, we're trying to save the Bay."
E-mail Jason Green at jgreen@dailynewsgroup.com.
http://www.paloaltodailynews.com/article/2007-3-14-03-14-07-pa-500th-project
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