A changinglandscape Drought forces groupto alter plans forwetland restorationPage 22

Sunday, February 9, 2014   |  Section W  P1On the Peninsula   FREE

 Add chia seeds to breakfast, Page 4 Where to go this week, Page 12 Preserving part of S.F. founder’s history, Page 18

 

W22 On the Peninsula   |   San Francisco Chronicle and SFGate.com   | Sunday, February 9, 2014  P1

By Sophia Markoulakis

With a shovel and a 5-gallon bucket, Donna Nickle clearsaway handfuls of dried grass,digs a 6-inch hole and carefullyputs in a creeping wild rye, aplant native to tidal marshes.

Nickle, who grew up in Red-wood City, joined about 30other Save the Bay volunteers tohelp restore the marshes at EastPalo Alto’s Faber Tract. But thelate January planting was un-usual this year as the tempera-tures soared and everyone wasreminded to constantly reapplysunscreen and drink water.

“We’re usually distributingponchos and working with thecold and muddy conditions, butinstead we’re watering seed-lings and worrying about get-ting them established,” said Jack States, restoration projectspecialist for Save the Bay.

For more than 40 years,volunteers on the Peninsulaand throughout the Bay Areahave nurtured plants in aneffort to restore tidal marshes,which are essential for ahealthy bay. Their goal is tore-establish 100,000 acres andthey rely on nearly 7,000 volun-teers each year.

This year’s efforts are morecomplicated than usual becausemany of these areas have re-ceived little rain in the last 13months. Volunteers at FaberTract hoisted 5-gallon bucketsfrom a truck outfitted with a275-gallon tank to water thetender seedlings.

Before California declared adrought state of emergency on Jan. 21, Save the Bay had set agoal of planting 40,000 seed-lings at its sites, include Ra-venswood Pond in Menlo Park, by the end of March.

Now, they’ve had to shiftgears and direct some of theirvolunteer efforts toward water-ing and maintaining the seed-lings that have already beenplanted, while continuing tonurture the rest of the plants intheir Palo Alto and Oakland

SAVE THE BAY

Preserving wetlands as state dries

Photos by Laura Morton / Special to The Chronicle

Above: Ramkumar Vadivelu, left, and Swathi Ram, 12, plant creeping wild rye while volunteering with Save the Bay at East PaloAlto’s Faber Tract. Below left: A volunteer holds a western goldenrod plant, one of the native plants the group has planted inthe wetlands as part of their restoration work. Below right: Redwood City resident Steven Russell waters a plant.

 

 P1 Sunday, February 9, 2014   |   San Francisco Chronicle and SFGate.com   | On the Peninsula   W23

nurseries, States said. Theseedlings that do not get plant-ed this year will be trans-planted into larger containersand saved for next year.

“There’s a misconceptionthat a drought-tolerant plantlike a native can just be stuckin the ground. These plantsneed about five months of regular watering to establishthemselves and becomedrought tolerant,” States said.

Nickle, who now lives inFremont, has spent her wholelife crossing the bay and haswatched it change over theyears. Her father, who worksfor the Redwood City waterdepartment, always talkedabout the science of recycledwater when she was younger.Now as a college student at

Cupertino’s De Anza College,she has become active in pro-testing projects, such as arecent Redwood City devel-opment project, which she saidwill pave over restorable saltponds to build housing.

“I’ve learned how importantmarshes are for pollution fil-tration. On first glance thesemarshes just look like deadgrass until you realize that thisis a thriving habitat,” Nicklesaid. She volunteers at leastonce a month and always triesto bring friends so she canintroduce and educate them tothe idea of marsh restoration.

At each of the organization’ssix restoration sites, the goal isto re-establish native plants inthe marshes, which act astransition zones to protect

habitat for wildlife during hightides and also as a human buffer zone between themarshes and the uplands.

Though the reintroductionand planting of natives takesplace during the wintermonths, the organization’smarsh restoration efforts occuryear round. From removinginvasive species and collectingseeds from reference sitesaround the bay to sowing and

propagating them in theirnurseries, each seedling takesthe efforts of 10 volunteers,according to States.

Redwood City resident Ste-ven W. Russell has volunteeredwith Save the Bay for eightyears, partly because he grewup in East Palo Alto near Fab-er Tract.

“During the ’50s, every win-ter many of the houses in ourneighborhood would flood,”

Russell said.This area of East Palo Alto

is prone to flooding duringparticularly high tide events,often referred to as King Tides.Bringing back the land’s biodi-versity is just one step towardaddressing the connection between rising sea levels andclimate change, States said.

The group also offers educa-tional programs that targetstudents from elementarythrough high school, includingSan Mateo’s Junipero SerraHigh School and OdysseyMiddle School.

About half of their volun-teers are the students lookingto fulfill community servicerequirements for school andyouth groups, States said.

“It’s great that they comeand help out, especially whenthey come back on their ownand develop an interest inwhat we’re doing,” States said.“Many of these students willvolunteer year-round so theycan participate in the entirelife cycle of these plants.”

A quick survey of the emptyplant plugs totals about 100 —not bad for three hours worthof work — but it’s far fewerthan a typical winter plantingevent.

“With a maximum volunteercapacity of 60, we could get400 plants in the ground dur-ing the same time period,” saysStates. “But we have to adaptto the variables.”

The unplanted flats of na-tives will return to the nurserywith the hope that it will rainsoon and they’ll get theirchance again in the comingweeks. If not, hopefully they’llreturn next year bigger andstronger.

“Restoration is all aboutadaptively managing,” Statessays.

Sophia Markoulakis is a Peninsula freelance writer. E-mail OnthePeninsula@sfchronicle.com.

Above: Donna Nickle looks at a creeping wild rye plant before putting it into the ground. Nickle, a college student, volunteerswith Save the Bay once a month. Below: A volunteer waters a new plant that is native to the marsh wetlands.

“On first glance these marshes just look like

dead grass until you realize that this is a

thriving habitat.”

— Donna Nickle, a Save the Bay volunteer 

Save the Bay For more information on Save

the Bay and to sign up to volun-

teer at one of their six restora-

tion sites, visit

www.savesfbay.org.