This year, Creek Days were held in Pamplin Grove, part of the Van Duzen County Park. Pamplin Grove is a spectacular example of a redwood forest, bounded on one side by Highway 36, and on the other by the Van Duzen River, which feeds into the main Eel River and is part of the Eel River watershed. The rain, which continued all day on Tuesday, did not dampen anyone’s enthusiasm at the event. In fact, things were relatively dry under the protective canopy of the old growth redwood forest.
Education Coordinator Caryn Beiter says that Creek Days is the educational component of the two-pronged mission of the Watershed Stewards.
”Most of our work is split between two aspects,” she says. “We offer education about salmonids and salmonid restoration and about watershed health, and we do a lot of field work, so, we are out in the field, planting trees, pulling invasive weeds, and preserving salmonid habitat in the rivers, restoring pools, steps, reducing sediment loads and stuff like that.”
The concept of “watershed” is bandied about a lot these days and I asked Beiter to talk about watershed consciousness and how one defines one’s watershed.
”That’s what we’re always trying to explain, especially to kids,” she said. “A watershed can be as small as your back yard. Everything that you do in your household flows into one central area and goes out from there. Each river is its own watershed from the ridgetops where the water falls down to where it flows, but really we all live in the one greater watershed and that all goes into our oceans and circulates around the world. So if we all take care of the many small watersheds, the greater watershed will be healthier.
”There are a lot of different issues going on with different rivers. The Eel River watershed definitely has some issues with water diversion and the amount of water in that river and there are issues with invasive plants that are affecting the habitat on the Eel. The Van Duzen is a little healthier in that they have runs of fish and some water, although, like all the rivers in the area, they are not as high as they used to be. Fluctuations of river levels in the Van Duzen is related to the fluctuations of the river levels in the Eel.”
Creek Days is a multi-day event. Beiter and the others arrived at Pamplin Grove on Sunday to set up the educational booths and prepare for the event, which lasts three days, with about 160 school children visiting each day. Creek Days is held in a different location every year. This year Pamplin Grove was chosen to make it easier for the northernmost schools to participate. Students came over the three-day period from Trinidad and Blue Lake in the north to Weott, Scotia and Fortuna to the south.
There were more booths than ever this year, Beiter said. The booths ranged from topics such as geomorphology, macroinvertebrates, soils and geology to identifying animals by their scat, learning about plants of the redwood ecosystem, the place of the FBI in the redwood forest (with FBI standings for Fungus, Bacteria and Insects), a chance to see the smaller creatures of the forest and a chance to meet three owls of the region - a Great Horned, a Northern Spotted and a Screech Owl. A new booth this year gave kids an introduction to field tools for tree plantings for restoration work.
”Part of what the Creek Days offer is an awareness of the kind of work that is available in out of doors and in forest restoration,” Beiter said. “It’s good that kids realize that there are different kinds of careers out there, as well as learning to appreciate the forest.”
The Eel River Watershed Improvement Group provided the funding for Creek Days.
Garberville resident Ruth Goodfield of the Eel River Watershed Improvement Group says her organization was formed to do watershed enhancement projects in conjunction with AmeriCorps.
”Earwig, as we are commonly known, is sponsoring this event and Americorps does all the actual work,” Goodfield said. “We help find the funding for the event and assist with coordination.”
Goodfield worked for Fish and Game for a dozen years and says that moving into restoration work was a natural progression for her.
The group was formed at the time that Congressman Mike Thompson was helping to pass legislation to pay for fisheries restoration and there was funding to be had for such work. As with everything else, the funding is not as available as it once was.
”We’re project oriented and we don’t do litigation,” Goodfield said. “We help land owners and land managers to do things on their property for salmon and steelhead. We’ve done quite a bit of work in the China Creek watershed and in the Redwood Creek watershed and quite a bit here in the Van Duzen. We focus a lot on bank stabilization and in stream restoration by adding habitat for steelhead.”
They have a website under Eel River Watershed Improvement Group and offices in Fortuna. The phone number there is 707-725-4317.
”I think things in the watersheds are steadily improving as people are educated about siltation, which is a big issue, and about water conservation, which is the other big issue,” Goodfield says.
Next year, Creek Days will be held in Humboldt Redwoods State Park near Weott.
REDWOOD TIMES PHOTOS BY MARY ANDERSON
1. Students from Loleta School were among the 400-plus students who took part in the annual Watershed Stewards’ Creek Days program, held this year in Pamplin Grove on the Van Duzen River. Here Caterina Lewis-Perry (left), Team Leader for Watershed Stewards, helps Principal Sol Steinberg and his students learn about the different kinds of fur of animals in the redwood forest. “Outdoor education is the best,” said Principal Steinberg, and his students agreed.
2. How big around is a redwood? These students are getting a “hands-on” experience measuring the girth of the trees in Pamplin Grove.
3. One of the new booths at this year’s Creek Days was all about the tools AmeriCorps workers need when they go out into the field to plant trees or pull invasive plants so the native plants can thrive. This Watershed Steward is wearing his tree bag and carrying his hoedad, ready for a day of planting trees and demonstrating the kinds of work that students might want to do when they grow up.
4. Students at Creek Days got to be up close and personal with these two owls, a Great Horned Owl on the left and a Northern Spotted Owl on the right. Handler Sara said that both birds were rescued after having been injured and now spend their lives as educators, attending wildlife fairs.
5. Erosion is the great threat to the health of streams and rivers. This booth gave the students a chance to see what happens when a lot of water washes over a denuded stream bank. Streams fare much better when the streamside vegetation is in place.
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