Adobe Creek Restoration Nears Completion By The Bay Institute September 2008 SMP Newsletter

Flowing near Petaluma’s urban center, Adobe Creek has a long history of restoration aimed at preserving and revitalizing its remaining steelhead population. Restoration has been completed on most of the large land holdings within the watershed, but some smaller ones have been overlooked. The Bay Institute’s (TBI’s) Students and Teachers Restoring a Watershed (STRAW) Project has been working for several years with landowners on Adobe Creek. STRAW has conducted three restorations on private holdings on the creek. This fall, STRAW will restore the last section of the main stream, which represents the final barrier to complete habitat connectivity, from the headwaters on Sonoma Mountain to the creek’s confluence with the Petaluma River. Funding for this restoration was generously provided by the Community Foundation Sonoma County through their Partners in Philanthropy Program. The work STRAW has undertaken on Adobe Creek is thriving in large part thanks to the private landowners who welcome classes of school children onto their property to carry out restoration work on the creek banks.

The STRAW Project is the cornerstone of TBI’s Watershed Education Program, established in 1998 to integrate the organization’s broader policy and advocacy expertise with local, on-the ground community restoration and education efforts. STRAW delivers teacher education in restoration science, classroom support, and student-centered ecosystem restoration of North Bay creeks and wetlands. STRAW grew out of the work of the California Freshwater Shrimp Project, begun in 1992 by a fourth-grade class in Marin County that pioneered methods by which students conduct restoration of riparian corridors. Today STRAW sustains a professional development network of 75 teachers in 35 schools in Marin, Sonoma, and Napa counties whose classes work with partners such as ranchers, resource agencies, environmental organizations, restoration specialists, and community members to study and restore diverse habitats in Bay Area watersheds.

Petaluma students will participate in a professionally designed habitat restoration to remove invasive species and revegetate the creek banks with native plants. STRAW restorations involve planting willows and other native trees and shrubs. Plants are propagated locally to maintain the original genetic composition of the watershed. Restorations are designed for an 80% plant survival rate. Rural restorations are facilitated by Prunuske Chatham, Inc. (PCI), a firm that specializes in ecological restoration, hydrology, revegetation, and erosion control, which has been involved in the preparation of many of the management plans that will guide the project. STRAW maintains project sites for three years to ensure plant survival.

Through the environmental education provided by STRAW students and teachers engage in watershed studies and riparian restoration activities that focus on the importance of habitat connectivity. PRBO Conservation Science partners with STRAW to bring bird studies to students and teachers to and educate them on the importance of bird species for restoration monitoring efforts. Teachers also participate in a professional development program that builds their capacity to deliver meaningful watershed experiences to their students through training in restoration methodology, investigative watershed studies, and project-oriented pedagogy.. These ongoing environmental science studies create a context for the restoration work and a greater understanding of watershed ecology for students and teachers. Through STRAW more than 15,000 students have participated in 225 hands-on habitat restorations on rural and urban creeks and wetlands, planting 24,000 native trees, shrubs, and grasses.

Learn more about The Bay Institute and the STRAW project at www.bay.org.