By Darcy Aston, Management Analyst/Outreach Coordinator, Napa Sanitation District
The November sun slanted through the row of trees along the ranch road as a group of third graders made their way towards Suscol Creek. The kids skipped and danced down the road, excited to get started on their project. Their objective? To install native plants along the banks of Suscol Creek, as part of a restoration project spearheaded by the Napa Sanitation District (NSD). Napa Sanitation District isn’t normally in the creek restoration business, but the district owns two ranch properties that are used for distribution of recycled water and biosolids, both bi-products of the wastewater treatment process. Suscol Creek flows through one of these properties, the former Somky Ranch, which sprawls along the Napa River south of Highway 29. A local environmental group in Napa has been monitoring steelhead trout in Suscol Creek since 2004, and has identified the creek as important habitat for this threatened species. The reach of Suscol Creek running through Somky Ranch was overgrown with Himalayan Blackberry, an invasive non-native plant that chokes out native vegetation and limits access to the creek for both humans and wildlife.
“Our mission is to safely treat wastewater and protect public health, but we also want to be good stewards of the land we manage,” points out District General Manager Tim Healy. “Neighboring landowners have implemented restoration along their creek banks, and we wanted to do our part.” The district is also poised to receive Fish Friendly Farming Certification for the Somky ranch, a distinction conferred on properties where the land is actively managed in ways that protect water quality and fish habitat.
“Preserving the Napa River for Generations to Come’ is a motto at NSD,” notes Healy. “We do that through excellent wastewater treatment, but we also wanted to follow suit with our land management activities.”
The district got busy along Suscol Creek in spring 2011, when a crew began removing the abundant and tenacious blackberry vines from the creek banks. Native trees were carefully cut free of their thorny cloak, and trash was pulled from the creek bed. Once the blackberry vines had been beaten into submission, an important step remained: restoring the native plants that had been edged out by the blackberry. The now-barren creek side had once been the site of a native riparian forest – plants and trees that are adapted to grow in proximity to the creek. This forest provides food and shelter for wildlife, as well as protecting creek banks from high water flows.
Our mission is to safely treat wastewater and protect public health, but we also want to be good stewards of the land we manage
Working with the Napa County Flood Control District, NSD came up with a restoration plan. “We had to imagine what had once grown along Suscol Creek, based on healthy creek habitat elsewhere in the Napa Valley, and then replant with those native plants,” explains Darcy Aston, outreach coordinator for the district.
This is where the Napa students came into the picture. While crafting the restoration project, the district contacted Pueblo Vista Elementary School, an environmental sciences magnet school.
“Our program is based on hands-on, experiential learning,” affirms Steve Konakis, lead teacher at Vista 360º. “This type of project gets our students out there in the community, learning about watersheds and how we can get involved in making things better.” The school immediately signed on with the project, and NSD provided the buses to bring students out to the creek. Once they were assembled at the restoration site, the students watched a demonstration on how to install the native plants. Konakis showed them how to prepare their hole and carefully remove the small plants from their pots. Next, the kids learned the best way to “tuck the plants in,” carefully filling the hole with earth and placing weed cloth and plant tubes around the plants for protection. “Weed cloth surrounds each plant to keep out the competing plants,” Aston points out. “We got some empty burlap coffee bean sacks from Napa Recycling and Waste Services, and used those instead.” Hence a waste product becomes a useful tool in the restoration project – these are the kinds of connections that NSD and Pueblo Vista want the students to make.
Set loose from the planting demonstration, teams of students ran off to claim a hole where a colored flag told them which plant should be installed there. Teachers, volunteers and parents roamed among the exuberant kids, offering planting tips and helping operate the large shovels. Oaks, buckeyes and elderberry trees went into the ground, along with native shrubs like snowberry and coyote brush. The plants were purchased with a grant from the Napa County Wildlife Conservation Commission. Over the next three years, the plants will be irrigated with recycled water until they are established.
The restoration site is within view of NSD’s wastewater treatment plant, so the students also had questions about “the poop factory.” It provided a great opportunity for them to learn about how wastewater becomes recycled water. The day wasn’t all work though. Students also got to play games that complemented their hands-on planting activity. “‘Steal the Native Plant’ mimics ‘Steal the flag’,” explains Stephanie Turnipseed, education coordinator forthe Napa Valley Resource Conservation District. “The kids learn the plant names so they can win the game, and they love it!” Outdoor education specialist Jonny Elhers, who works with Vista 360º on program development, led the kids in acting out the life cycle of a plant. After four hours, tired third graders piled back on the bus. Many native plants were now in the ground, and the Suscol Creek restoration project was well underway. Would they do it again? “We want to come back – this is the most fun field trip we’ve ever had!” pronounced one student, while another summed it up: “We got to help nature!” Lucky for the students at Pueblo Vista, the district and the school plan to continue their partnership by including the students in future monitoring and maintenance of the restoration site.