The
^jolunteer L /i lonitor
The National Newsletter of Volunteer Water Quality Monitoring
Volume 11, No. 1, Spring 1999
Note: This information is provided for reference
purposes only. Although the information provided
here was accurate and current when first created, it is
now outdated.
Issue Topic: Restoration
Table of Contents
The following articles appear in this edition of The Volunteer Monitor
(not all graphs and figures available)
Information on The Volunteer Monitor
Ecological Restoration
Restoration Workshops
Society for Ecological Restoration
Strictly Speaking: What "Restoration" Means
Fixing a Salt Marsh: Citizens, Shovels, and Sweat
Guide to Effective Outreach
Using Bioengineering to Restore Paper Mill Run
The Paper Mill Run Project, Step By Step
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Volunteers Add "Missing Piece" -- Monitoring Restoration
Stand By Your Project or, Don't Plant 'Em and Leave 'Em
Bugs in the Web!
Funding for Community-Based Habitat Restoration
Monitoring Workshop
Restoring a Coastal Scrub Community
Native Plant Nursery
Funding Directory
Using Monitoring Data to Choose Planting Sites for Underwater Grasses
Volunteer Monitors Get Voice on National Council
Date Set for National Volunteer Monitoring Conference
Making Your Restoration Project Happen
Guide to Clean Water Act
Restoration Resources
Learning Science Through Restoration
Assessing Restoration in Four Dimensions
Frogwatch USA
EPA Environmental Education Grants
Great American Fish Count
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Rotating co-editors
The Volunteer Monitor has a permanent editor and volunteer editorial board. In addition,
a different monitoring group serves as coeditor for each issue.
This issue was coedited by the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, which works to protect
the Delaware River watershed through advocacy, monitoring, enforcement, and
restoration. The Watershed includes parts of Delaware, New Jersey, New York, and
Pennsylvania.
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The
^jolunteer L /i lonitor
The National Newsletter of Volunteer Water Quality Monitoring
Volume 11, No. 1, Spring 1999
Note: This information is provided for reference
purposes only. Although the information provided
here was accurate and current when first created, it is
now outdated.
As we go to press, we are pleased to ann ounce that a new structure for The Volun teer
Monitor has just been finalized. River Network, a national watershed protection and
advocacy organization, will be producing the newsletter under a Cooperative
Agreement with EPA. Eleanor Ely will continue as editor, and the editorial board will
remain the same. Look for more details about this exciting development in the next
issue. Effective immediately, all inquiries about subscriptions and back issue orders
should be directed to:
River Network
The Volunteer Monitor Newsletter
520 SW 6th Ave, Suite 1130
Portland, OR 97204-1535
Next issue
The Fall 1999 issue will focus on youth, featuring both school projects and out-of-
school activities (Scouts, 4-H, youth-at-risk, etc.) To contribute an article, please contact
the editor.
From the Editor
With this issue, The Volunteer Monitor broadens its scope to encompass a new topic:
restoration.
Monitoring and restoration go hand in hand. When monitoring reveals a problem,
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volunteer monitors naturally want to do something about it. Sometimes a restoration
project is part of the solution.
But fixing nature is never simple. You can stabilize an eroding streambank—but will the
bank fail again in heavy winter storms? You can pull up invasive nonnative plants and
plant natives—but will the new plants hold their own against returning weeds? Only long-
term monitoring can answer these questions.
So restoration and monitoring are inextricably linked—or, at least, they ought to be. In
reality, monitoring has often been more of a missing link (as Donna Meyers points out
in Volunteers Add "Missing Piece"—Monitoring Restoration). There is a huge need for
volunteers to collect monitoring data, both before and after a restoration project.
Volunteers are actively restoring all kinds of ecosystems. This issue contains reports on
a number of projects, but still barely scratches the surface. Look for continuing coverage
of this important topic in future issues.
About The Volunteer Monitor
The Volunteer Monitor newsletter facilitates the exchange of ideas, monitoring methods,
and practical advice among volunteer environmental monitoring groups across the
nation.
The Volunteer Monitor is published twice yearly. The newsletter is also available online
at http://www.epa.gov/owow/volunteer/vm index.html.
Reprinting material from The Volunteer Monitor is encouraged. Please notify the editor
of your intentions, and send us a copy of your final publication.
Address all correspondence to: Eleanor Ely, Editor; ellieely@aol.com.
Watershed Academy
Watershed Academy, a project of EPA's Office of Wetlands, Oceans, and Watersheds
(OWOW), offers a number of programs to assist watershed managers. Among them are:
Training courses: About 20 watershed training workshops, developed by OWOW, on
technical/scientific topics, watershed management, and community outreach.
"Academy 2000": Online training modules for distance-learning.
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"Inventory of Watershed Training Courses": A national directory of watershed-
related training courses, with one-page summaries of 180 courses offered by a variety of
federal and state agencies as well as the private sector.
For more information on these and other Watershed Academy activities, visit
www.epa.gov/OWOW/watershed/wacademy/. Printed copies of the Inventory are also
available at no charge from NSCEP at 800-490-9198 (ask for publication number EPA
841-D-98-001).
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The
^jolunteer L /i lonitor
The National Newsletter of Volunteer Water Quality Monitoring
Volume 11, No. 1, Spring 1999
Note: This information is provided for reference
purposes only. Although the information provided
here was accurate and current when first created, it is
now outdated.
Ecological Restoration: Rebuilding Nature
by John W. Mimro
Ecological restoration is different.
Different from what? Different from almost everything we humans have tried to do to
fix degraded landscapes and waterscapes.
Different how? Different in that it is about returning the landscape back to an earlier
time prior to the damages that have been inflicted. Different in that it has more guiding
principles than the likes of concrete-levee construction, wetland mitigation, slope
stabilization, and many other land and water "fixes." Different in that those guiding
principles not only provide direction to the restoration process, but also provide more
ways of monitoring the results to judge whether the intended condition has been
achieved.
Ecological appropriateness
The difference lies in ecological appropriateness.
When stabilizing a stream in Alabama, is it appropriate to use willows native to Europe?
When you restore fisheries and boating to an algae-covered, nutrient-loaded lake, is it
wise to adopt a plan to regularly apply broad-spectrum aquatic herbicides? To replant a
formerly diverse swamp forest destroyed by a contamination cleanup, is it OK to
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uniformly plant with cattails because they are wetland plants?
The site manager might answer yes to all these questions, but the restoration ecologist
would have to answer no. The reason: ecological appropriateness.
The way that we determine ecological appropriateness is to reconstruct what plants,
animals, hydrology, water characteristics, substrates, and so on were present prior to the
disruption of the system. In some ways the restoration ecologi st is a "forensic ecologist"-
a detective of ecosystem history.
Defining restoration
"Restoration" has become a new buzzword with
perceived magical qualities. One hears the term thrown
about loosely and often without much thought. Yet the
word by itself means nothing.
If I am to restore my house, I could restore its function by
adding insulation to its walls; I could restore its exterior
trim color by painting it white (as it was 20 years ago) or
blue (as it was 40 years ago); I could restore its original
18th-century lighting by removing all the wiring and light
fixtures. All these activities are restoration but all have
different aims, some of which conflict with others.
When we modify the word "restoration" with the word
"ecological," a lot of the questions about the meaning of
restoration are answered. The technical definition for
ecological restoration is:
The process of intentionally altering a site to establish a
defined, indigenous, historic ecosystem. The goal of this
process is to emulate the structure, function, diversity,
and dynam ics of the specified, ecosystem .
Yes, we all know that perfection is not possible by our own hands and that to rebuild a
lost native landscape involves compromises. The American chestnut cannot be re-
introduced to forests until and unless the blight is brought under control. The zebra
mussel and lamprey inhabit such huge expanses of water that they may be permanent
invaders.
This does not, however, prevent restoring past thriving ecosystem conditions in many
Seventh-graders from Radnor
Middle School plant native
wetland shrubs along a pond
edge. The banks have been
covered with matting made from
natural coconut fiber, which will
help prevent erosion while the
plants become established.
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places that have been degraded. It merely means that we have to look at the definition
carefully and follow the intent of what is stated .
The basic "rules" for ecological restoration come from the definition. The natural world
is our model. The end product-the restored landscape-should be self-sustaining with the
minimum amount of maintenance possible. When a site is restored it then is subject to
natural processes and natural changes and will not likely remain static.
Ecological restoration is a dynamic process that includes science, art, philosophy,
people, economics, time, and lofty goals. These elements can be difficult to merge. Yet
they are the elements that can begin to reverse the massive trend toward reduction of
planetary diversity.
Restoring a stream, ecologically
The ecological restorationist must view the landscape as it
is and as it could have been, both at the same time. While
observing the degraded conditions of present reality, he or
she must overlay a mental picture of what possible repairs
can be done (all the while keeping in mind the inevitable
limitations of money, time, available labor, etc.). This
multiple simultaneous view is part of seeing the
complexity of an ecological system.
As an example of how ecological restoration is different,
consider the case of a small stream that runs through
suburban housing tracts. The course of the stream has
been altered to fit lot lines, and as the streambed tries to
return to its original shape, it causes erosion of the
straightened banks. Meanwhile, the former wooded
landscape has been covered with paving, houses, and
lawns with soils much more compacted than the original
forest soils. During stonns, water rushes through in great short surges that dwindle to a
trickle after the storm. Mowing of the stream banks keeps them unstable, and weed
trimming has removed the deep-rooted sedges that used to hold the stream edges in
place. The overhanging trees are gone and now the water temperature is too wann to
support some kinds of fish.
The folks in the houses along the banks look at this landscape and see a basically natural
stream that perhaps needs to be restocked with fish. The township engineer sees an
embankment problem that needs structural repair. The practitioner of ecological
restoration sees a drastically impoverished ecosystem and a whole lot of work ahead if
Volunteers install coconut coir
matting on a recontoured
streambank at Pennypack Creek
in Fairmount Park,
Philadelphia.
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the stream is to be returned to its former water quality and stability.
Why the difference in perspective? Because the restoration ecologist understands in
detail how profoundly this degraded stream, now little more than a drainage ditch, has
changed from its natural state.
The ecologist sees the silted-in rocks on the stream bottom and knows they can't provide
habitat for diverse insect larvae. He or she realizes that fertilizer from the pampered
streamside lawns will make algae in the stream grow miraculously fast, choking out
submerged plants and many aquatic animals. The ecologist knows that restoring the
streamside vegetation will require research to learn what species lived there before-and
that those species probably can't be purchased at the local garden supply store but will
have to be found in the wild and propagated.
Further, the ecological restorationist recognizes that returning this stream back to
ecological health will entail doing things outside of the stream itself, like planting
vegetated buffer strips along the stream, or perhaps providing sub-surface groundwater
recharge systems in place of standard storm water basins.
Using natural materials
Often stream restoration requires recontouring scoured vertical banks into slopes that
will support plant growth. In the past, "hard" structures such as rock, concrete, and rock
gabions (steel-mesh baskets filled with rocks) have been considered "standard."
However, such structures are not permanent, and they have many negative ecological
effects.
Now it is possible to use natural materials, including coconut fiber fabrics along with
native plants. Some placement of rocks may be necessary, but we can use native stone
and design the placement to replicate natural patterns in the area. The concept of
"natural bioengineering," in which native plants and natural materials are used to repair
unstable settings, relies on understanding the engineering properties and capacities of
plants. There is almost always a range of possible ways to repair damage to ecological
systems. In ecological restoration the choice should always lean toward natural and
native.
Restoration model
Every ecological restoration project needs a restoration model-a detailed written
statement that clearly outlines the project's goals and acknowledges any limitations. A
good restoration model is indispensable because ecological restoration is new. Published
methods and guidelines are still in the formative phase.
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If you set out to build a house, you can follow the
course of many before you. The craft of designing
and building houses has developed over many years;
materials and methods are relatively standardized.
But when we do ecological restoration work,
precedents and off-the-shelf designs are not
available. We must ask a lot of questions about the
condition of the existing landscape, the possible
design choices, the construction and planting
process, the materials to be used, the reasons for
choices that are made, and the way in which we will
test to see if and how the restored system works.
The answers to all these questions become the basis
for the restoration model.
The restoration model should include:
1. Project definition. Why is the project being done? What is it expected to accomplish?
Who will provide the driving force?
2. Project area description (ownership, size, shape of waterway, adjacent land cover,
etc.).
3. Statement of intent. An example might be the intent to use only locally native species
and only natural materials.
4. Sources of information for historic conditions reference-for example, fieldwork,
published and unpublished data, management practices of original people, old photos,
old people's memories.
5. Statement of the selected time period and conditions that are being emulated.
6. Exceptions and qualifications-for example, conditions that are desired but not
attainable.
7. Methods for testing project success. The more detailed and specific the monitoring
plan, the more we can learn about how well the projected outcomes are fulfilled in
reality.
Restoration
Workshops
Eagle Hill Field Seminars in
Ecological Restoration are
professional-level workshops, 2 to
4 days in length, on topics such as
bioengineering, salt marsh
restoration, and salvage of plant
communities. Workshops are held
in various locations around the
country. For a complete listing
contact Humboldt Field Research
Institute, P.O. Box 9, Steuben,
ME 04680-0009; 207-546-2821;
humboldt@nemaine.com; or visit
http: //maine .maine. edu/-eaglhill/.
Avoid planting weeds
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Since most restoration is done in highly degraded areas, it's tempting to take the quick-
and-dirty approach of using "miracle plants"-fast-growing exotics and cultivars that
have been brought in for everything from providing wildlife cover to streambank
stabilization to beautification. The list of plants imported for such uses has nearly
completely turned into the list of the continent's most vigorous weeds in the wild. Amur
honeysuckle, autumn olive, multiflora rose, and many others were all introduced to
quickly solve problems. The new problems they have created are much greater than the
initial problems they were imported to solve.
History has taught us that planting nonnatives in wild areas really amounts to planting
weeds. It's time to abandon the "quick-fix" approach and start investing in ecologically
proven native plant communities that have thrived on the land for millennia.
Was the restoration successful?
Monitoring is absolutely essential to ecological restoration work. To see why, let's go
back to the house analogy. When you build a house you are not often faced with
questions like, Will it work? Will it have value as a house? or even, Will it really be a
house? You know it will because house-building is a well-established process. Not so
with ecological restoration. Each new project is in a real sense an experiment, another
opportunity to learn what works and what doesn't-but only if we do followup
monitoring, and not just for the short run, but over a period of years.
Monitoring plans for ecological restoration projects will not follow a standardized
format. Each project's restoration model provides the yardstick by which to measure its
success. If the model was carefully thought out, the project will be easily checked
because the means for checking it are already built in.
Within the model are a number of testable items. The following list is suggestive but not
all-inclusive:
• Planting specifications and densities - Were plants placed per specifications?
• Grading plans - Was the earthwork done right? Is the water depth correct?
• System performance - Have fish arrived in expected numbers and do they breed
here?
• Waterway performance - Do streams and ponds have projected aquatic diversity?
• Water quality - Are oxygen levels and turbidity similar to other natural healthy
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systems?
• Positive synergy - Have unexpected native species arrived?
• Unexpected negative changes - Have aggressive weeds or voracious foragers
arrived?
• Human use - Have people caused negative or positive changes since the work
was completed?
When monitoring is given a back seat and monitoring plans are not written until after
project work is completed, it is very difficult to decide how and what to monitor. Worse,
an ex post facto monitoring plan can be-intentionally or unintentionally-self-serving in
that it is tailored to tracking positive results while ignoring project failures.
"Can't be done"? We're doing it!
The concept that we can re-grow healthy prairies, marshes, shorelines, eelgrass beds,
forested slopes, and other natural systems has caught on. As with anything new, much
debate ensues regarding whether or not it will work. The debate goes back and forth
between people who consider the rebuilding of nature to be impossible, improbable, and
too costly, and those who reply that not only can it be done, it already has been done and
is being done.
Ecological restoration gives us the tools to understand and replicate natural systems in
ways that best suit local climate and physiographic conditions. This is what we must do
to begin to reverse a planetwide problem. We can begin in our own back yards.
John W. Munro is a certified senior ecologist who designs and oversees ecological restoration of
waterways, wetlands, forests, and grasslands. He also teaches ecological restoration workshops. He
may be contacted at Munro Ecological Services, Inc., 990 Old Sumneytown Pike, Harleysville, PA
19438-1215; 610-287-0671; munroeco@bellatlantic.net.
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Society for Ecological Restoration
The Society for Ecological Restoration (SER) is an international
membership organization with the mission of advancing the science and
art of restoring damaged ecosystems. SER's members practice and study
restoration in nearly all ecosystem types.
Anyone interested in ecological restoration may join. Members receive a
quarterly newsletter and may subscribe at reduced rates to Ecological
Restoration North America (see Restoration Resources) and Restoration
and Ecology (the Society's peer-reviewed journal).
SER conference
SER will hold its 10th international conference in San Francisco,
September 23-25, 1999. Workshops, field trips, and conference sessions
will explore the current practice and science of ecological restoration.
Topics for plenary symposia will be Ecological Restoration of Public
Lands; Watershed Politics and Management; and Community,
Connection, and Stewardship. The cultural side of restoration—art and
restoration, stewardship traditions, and the relationships between people
and nature—will be a focus of the conference.
For more information on membership or the conference, contact SER at
1207 Seminole Highway, Suite B, Madison, WI 53711; 608-262-9547;
email ser@vms2.macc.wisc.edu; Website http://www.ser.org.
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The
^jolunteer L /i lonitor
The National Newsletter of Volunteer Water Quality Monitoring
Volume 11, No. 1, Spring 1999
Note: This information is provided for reference
purposes only. Although the information provided
here was accurate and current when first created, it is
now outdated.
Strictly Speaking: What "Restoration" Means
In his plenary address at a recent conference, William R. Jordan III—the editor of Ecological
Restoration North America (formerly Restoration and Management Notes) and a founding member of
the Society for Ecological Restoration—offered some provocative comments about the meaning of the
word "restoration." The following is based on his remarks.
Rehabilitation, reclamation, restoration, preservation—these are sister terms describing a
family of management protocols. Some closely related terms are stewardship, healing,
recovery, repair. I suggest we use them all—but let's be careful how we define them,
because the language we use gets projected on the landscape and ultimately shapes it.
Restoration is the narrowest of these terms, and the most demanding. There is nothing
mysterious about it, however. Everyone who speaks English knows what restoration
means—it means putting something back the way it was. And not just setting the system
back in place, but setting it in motion.
Once we define restoration this way, our goal is defined by history, and it's very strict,
very hard-edged. "Rehabilitation" is different in this respect. When we rehabilitate a
system—restore certain functions or features—we are restoring selectively. In most
instances, we are restoring elements we happen to value, and we are relating to nature as
a resource.
Restoration, on the other hand, is a dialogue with nature as given. It is the only
management paradigm that is committed specifically to the perpetuation of the
landscape on its own terms. And this is a special kind of challenge. Ecologically it is a
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challenge because it means learning about the historic system and accurately recreating
it—getting everything right in an ecological sense. And it is a challenge psychologically
because it means setting aside our tastes and preferences (and even in a sense our
creativity) and trying to copy nature—rattlesnakes, poison ivy, fire, and all. In this way,
our relationship with the landscape becomes an exercise in humility and self-abnegation
Restoration is important for both reasons. Ecologically it is important because it is the
best strategy for preservation—for ensuring the existence of historic ecosystems in the
long run. And psychologically it is important because it entails a uniquely active yet
uniquely self-effacing relationship with nature.
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The
^jolunteer L /i lonitor
The National Newsletter of Volunteer Water Quality Monitoring
Volume 11, No. 1, Spring 1999
Note: This information is provided for reference
purposes only. Although the information provided
here was accurate and current when first created, it is
now outdated.
Fixing a Salt Marsh: Citizens, Shovels, and Sweat
by Wenley Ferguson
The marsh next to Little Mussa-chuck creek was changing, and you didn't need a degree
in ecology to notice it. Year by year, neighbors could see the stands of tall, shaggy
Phragmites austral is advance and spread, crowding out the salt marsh plants that used
to thrive there.
The neighbors were concerned, and so was the Barrington Land Conservation Trust,
which owns the marsh. The biggest worry was the threat to three rare native brackish
marsh plants of special interest in Rhode Island—Eleocharis rostellata (creeping
spikerush), Suaeda maritima (maritime sea blite), and Scirpus maritimus (bulrush).
People knew why the marsh was changing. The problems started a few years ago, when
a big winter storm piled up sand across the creek's mouth, closing the outlet to
Narragansett Bay. With nowhere else to go, the creek water flooded the marsh. The
marsh became less and less salty, creating the perfect conditions for invasive
Phragmites to outcompete brackish marsh plants.
The question was, could the marsh be restored to its former condition? The Land Trust
joined forces with Save The Bay, a local advocacy group, and Save The Bay called
upon experts from U.S. Fish and Wildlife, the Rhode Island Department of
Environmental Management, and the University of Rhode Island for technical
assistance. Together, the partners explored the options.
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The seemingly obvious remedy was to remove the sand and
open up the original creek mouth. However, we concluded
that this would provide only a temporary fix. The pattern of
sand movement in the area has been affected by nearby
seawalls that were built to protect shorefront houses. Since
the seawalls couldn't be removed, we suspected that over
time sand would re-accumulate at the creek mouth, until
eventually another big storm would close off the outlet
again.
So we looked for another solution. As it happened, only
half a mile away there was another tidal creek with an
outlet to the bay. We decided to dig a channel to connect
the blocked creek with the unblocked one. Since we
weren't going to return the creek to its earlier configuration,
our approach might better be termed rehabilitation than
restoration in the strict sense of the term. But we did hope
to bring the marsh back to its salty condition, thereby curbing the spread of Phragmites
and protecting the native brackish plants.
Volunteers do it all
The typical marsh restoration project requires bulldozers, trained operators, and weeks
of work. But the small scale of the Little Mussachuck project gave volunteers the rare
opportunity to perform all the work by hand. A crew of 70 volunteers ranging from high
school students to retired engineers turned out in April 1998, equipped with shovels and
buckets. They took just four days to dig a 300-foot channel to connect the two creeks.
The route of the channel had been planned out ahead, based on a survey of the natural
contours of the marsh, and as the crew dug, Save The Bay staff used a laser level to
ensure proper depth and width.
The volunteers had been forewarned that this would be hard, wet, and dirty work, and
not a soul complained as they shoveled and hauled hundreds of pounds of saturated
peat, then replanted saltmarsh sod.
Volunteer participation didn't end with the construction phase. In fact, it didn't begin
there either. Long before we got knee-deep in muck, Land Trust volunteers were out
doing a less visible kind of work—explaining the project to neighbors and attending
planning meetings. No doubt many people would say that meetings are harder work than
ditch-digging—but without meetings there is no restoration project.
About a year before the project, volunteers also drove stakes into the marsh to mark the
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boundaries of the Phragmites. This simple
technique, known as staking, made it possible to
track the rate and extent of spread both before and
after the rehabilitation .
Now Save The Bay is training volunteers to
monitor the long-term success of the project.
Volunteers will take annual photos at set
locations to track the coverage, height, and
density of Phragmites. They will also learn to
measure soil salinity via homemade salinity wells
(PVC pipes dug into the marsh), and to count and
identify plant species within transects.
Do you really need a Cadillac?
Restoration does not happen overnight. It may be many years before we know if the
project was a success. Thus, monitoring protocols for restoration projects need to be
designed with the long term in mind.
The scientific and technical advisors on a project may lean toward the "Cadillac
approach"~collecting comprehensive data on a wide range of indicators, to gain
maximum knowledge.
But it's important to ask, Who will be here when the agencies and scientists are gone?
Who will still be monitoring this site in 5, 10, or 15 years?
It will be the community people, and they may not be able to afford the continuing
investment of time, money, and equipment for Cadillac methods.
The Mussachuck project includes both the more comprehensive type of monitoring (the
plant transects and salinity testing) and a very simple method (the photographic
monitoring). Realistically, the volunteers may not continue the more demanding
methods beyond three to five years. But even 15 years from now it's a good bet they will
still be taking photos, which will effectively show what progress we are making toward
our restoration goals.
First year results
A year after construction the meandering creek carries freshwater out to Narragansett
Bay and, during full moon tides, carries the Bay's salty waters into the marsh. The
marsh, once flooded with freshwater, is now revealing mudflats. The mudflats were
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colonized by creeping spikerush during the first growing season, and are providing a
feeding mecca for shorebirds including Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs, Semi-palmated
Plovers, Glossy Ibis and Great and Snowy Egrets.
Wenley Ferguson is Save The Bay's Volunteer Monitor Monitoring Coordinator. She may be reached
at Save The Bay, 434 Smith St., Providence, RI02908; 401-272=3540; wferguson(a),savethebay.org
Guide to Effective Outreach
Watershed organizers who want to do a better job of reaching out to their
communities will find lots of truly practical advice in Getting In Step: A
Guide to Effective Outreach in Your Watershed. This attractive, highly
readable booklet ranges from broad issues like defining your goals to
nitty-gritty details like bulk mailing rates and requirements.
The advice in the book is down-to-earth and specific. For example, the
authors offer sample messages that a volunteer group might use to recruit
lake monitors from different segments of the community. For senior
citizens, suggested messages include "Have some free time? Make a
difference" and "Work with your community to improve Lake
Townsend." For high school students: "Earn high school credit and get a
tan at the same time."
Order Getting In Step from Council of State Governments, Publication
Sales Dept., P.O. Box 11910, Lexington, KY 40578-1910; 1-800-800-
1910; 68 pages; $10 + $4 shipping.
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^lolunteer L l\ Umitor
The National Newsletter of Volunteer Water Quality Monitoring
Volume 11, No. 1, Spring 1999
Note: This information is provided for reference purposes only. Although the
information provided here was accurate and current when first created, it is now
outdated.
Using Bioengineering to Restore Paper Mill Run
by Joy Law>rence
When Morris Arboretum set out to restore the portion of Paper Mill Run that runs through Arboretum grounds, we had two goals.
The first was to mitigate damages to the stream caused by human activities. The second was to create a demonstration project that
could serve as an educational display and model for other projects in the watershed. In particular, we wanted the project to
showcase bioengineering~the use of plants and plant materials to restore streambanks. Bioengineering, a relatively new approach
in the United States, blends the human science of engineering with the "engineering" services provided by natural systems.
Our second goal acknowledges that the project area represents less than 10 percent of the Paper Mill Run watershed. We cannot
bring significant change to our watersheds without the help of our upstream and downstream neighbors.
The problems
Before European settlement, the streams of the eastern United States were largely surrounded by forest. Tree roots, grasses, and
shrubs stabilized the streambanks while the forest canopy shaded the water, keeping it cool. The forest floor absorbed rainwater,
allowing it to seep slowly into the groundwater. When the stream flooded, its waters spread out gradually over the floodplain.
Urbanization has brought profound changes. Impervious surfaces—roads, rooftops, parking lots—don't behave anything like a
forest. Now, instead of being slowly absorbed into forest soils, stormwaters rush in torrents over paved surfaces, picking up mud
and pollutants as they go. Much of this is channeled directly into streams by storm sewer systems. When these rushing waters
reach a stream like Paper Mill Run, the onslaught cuts away at the stream's banks and bed. Tons of soil are washed into the
stream, making the water turbid. For gill-breathing animals, the effect is like trying to breathe in a sandstorm. After the storm, the
sediment settles to the bottom, smothering fish eggs and burying the small stones and cobbles that provide habitat for aquatic
insects.
Stormwater also carries a myriad of chemicals from lawns and paved surfaces-pesticides, herbicides, leaking fluids from cars, etc.
For Paper Mill Run, the most troublesome contaminant is nitrogen from fertilizers, which stimulates excessive algae growth in the
stream.
The restoration project
It is impossible to undo all the changes that we have made, but we can try to recreate at least some of the pre-development
conditions. At Paper Mill Run, the first step was to regrade the banks (photo 1). Damage from severe stormwater flows had
created steep and eroded banks. Wherever possible, we shaped the banks to a gentle slope, reconnecting the stream channel with
its floodplain. This will allow the stream to spread out during a storm event, slowing the water velocity and lessening its erosive
-------
power. More sediment will be deposited in the floodplain, and less in the streambed.
When the banks were cut and regraded, bare soil was exposed. It was important to prevent erosion by quickly establishing a stable
surface. We used biodegradable coconut fiber logs and matting to hold the soil in place until vegetative cover could become
established (photos 2-4). Because this material is organic, it provides an ideal medium for establishing new plantings.
The third step was planting the banks (photos 5-7). Streamside plants provide numerous benefits to streams. First, and most
obviously, well-developed root systems provide a kind of natural engineering that stabilizes streambanks and resists erosion. The
bigger the root system, the better the stabilizing force.
But if stabilization were the whole story of stream restoration, traditional solutions like lining banks with rock (riprap) or concrete
would do just fine. We are now coming to appreciate that streamside vegetation provides a whole array of "services" to a stream.
Plants take up nutrients that otherwise would run into the stream where they could promote excess algae growth. The soil and
plants act to filter and bind pollutants before they reach the stream. Shrubs and trees shade the water, maintaining a suitable
temperature for fish. The whole filtering, shading, and stabilizing process protects sensitive aquatic habitats, which is why we
speak about creating forest buffers along rivers and streams.
Not every homeowner has the space or inclination to put a forest in their yard. What's important to know is that the bigger the
plant, the more it benefits the stream. Traditional lawns have shallow root systems, provide no shade or habitat, and don't absorb
much rainwater. Meadows are better, shrub communities better still, and forests best of all. The plantings at Paper Mill Run are
designed, in part, to offer a selection of alternatives to traditional lawns. Many of the plants were chosen because of their
ornamental qualities.
Which plants to use?
Only plants native to Southeastern Pennsylvania were included in our selections. It is preferable to use regionally native species
because they are well adapted to local growing conditions. In addition, native plants work symbiotically with the native animal
community. These plants provide essential food and habitat that native animals have come to depend on through generations of
evolution. In return, the plants have come to depend on native animals and insects to provide distribution and pollinating services.
A thoughtful restoration must consider the complex relationships between plants and animals. At Paper Mill Run, rather than
trying to single out individual species to plant, we modeled our restoration design on a "reference site"~a section of relatively
undisturbed stream that closely resembles Paper Mill Run in its water flow, soils, and geology. Our long-term goal is to restore a
multilayered system, not just a few species. The reference site helped define the plant species, habitat, and distribution patterns
included in the master plan.
In deciding what should be planted where, the first step is a detailed site assessment. How wet are the soils? Only specialized
plants will grow at the edge of the stream, which will be continually very wet. As you move up the bank slope, conditions become
dryer and a wider variety of plants can be used. Soil chemistry is another important factor. Along the Paper Mill Run, we have
very high soil pH which is not suitable for a number of otherwise appropriate regional native plants
Controlling nonnative invasive plants is especially critical along stream corridors because the moving water acts like a highway to
efficiently convey seeds to new sites downstream. Aggressive invasives can also quickly overrun a newly planted landscape. The
Arboretum will monitor the progress of the new landscape and, based on observation and experiment, establish a responsive
maintenance regime to ensure the control of invasives and the health of the new riparian buffer.
Restoration on display
Thousands of Arboretum visitors are expected to pass through the Paper Mill Run demonstration project annually. To enhance
their experience, we have designed a full program of education and interpretation. It includes on-site display panels, take-away
materials, guided tours, and associated workshops and classes. In a few months, most of the bioengineering materials we used will
be covered by plant growth, so it is important that we explain the process that underlies the new landscape as well as the reasons
for undertaking the project.
-------
As we come to understand more fully how nature creates and maintains itself, not as a static or rigid entity but as a dynamic and
responsive system, we are better able to design and adapt our restoration activities to take advantage of the valuable services
nature provides. If there was only one message we could give to every visitor, it would be that each of us is a part of this grand
system.
For more information on the Arboretum's restoration projects, visit htiptJ/www. upetm. edu/morris/utf.
Joy Lawrence is Community Programs Assistant at Morris Arboretum of the University of Pennsylvania, 9414 Meadowbrook Ave,, Philadelphia, PA
19118; 215-247-5777 ext. 105: joyleiSjpobox.upetm.edu.
The Paper Mill Run Project, Step By Step
Except for the first step (regrading the banks), the whole project was installed with hand labor by volunteers and Arboretum staff.
The project required approximately 1,500 hours of work, about half of which was spent on the planting.
1 Steep, eroded
banks were
regraded to
wider and
shallower
slopes.
2 A shallow trench
was out at the bottom
of the banks.
3 Coconut
coir logs
(stuffed with
the fibrous
outer husks of
coconuts)
were set into
the trench. In
a few weeks,
the logs will fill with silt, providing ideal
conditions for establishing the wet-tolerant
plants.
7 Live plants
were
"plugged"
through the
mats and
4 Coconut coir matting was sewn to the coconut
coir logs. Volunteers stitched a total length of
almost 1,800 feet; each stitch was 2 inches long.
5 Banks were raked and seeded. (Note: In the
area shown here, banks could not be graded to as
shallow a slope as elsewhere in the project.)
6 The coconut coir matting was pulled up over
the seeded bank and staked into place.
sewn or
stapled in
place. The
coconut-fiber
material
provides a temporary stabilizing mechanism
while plants become established. The matting
will degrade in 3 to 5 years, and the plant roots
will take over the job of stabilizing the bank.
-------
Some Reflections on Bioengineering
"Unlike conventional structures, bioengineered systems grow stronger with age. These are the only systems I
know in which this is the case. Time is on our side, so to say.
. . . Soil bioengineering does not directly repair a site as does conventional engineering; instead, it sets in place
a mechanical and living foundation on which the land is intended to recover."
—Robbin B. Sotir
(From Environmental Restoration: Science and Strategies for Restoring the Earth, ed. John Berger, Island Press, 1990.)
-------
^lolunteer L i7\onitor
The National Newsletter of Volunteer Water Quality Monitoring
Volume 11, No. Spring 1999
Note: This information is provided for reference
purposes only. Although the information provided
here was accurate and current when first created, it is
now outdated.
The Paper Mill Run Project, Step By Step
Except for the first step (regrading the banks), the whole project was installed with hand
labor by volunteers and Arboretum staff. The project required approximately 1,500
hours of work, about half of which was spent on the planting.
1 Steep, eroded banks were regraded to wider and shallower slopes.
-------
2 A shallow trench was cut at the bottom of the banks.
3 Coconut coir logs (stuffed with the fibrous outer husks of coconuts) were set into the
trench. In a few weeks, the logs will fill with silt, providing ideal conditions for
establishing the wet-tolerant plants.
4 Coconut coir matting was sewn to the coconut coir logs. Volunteers stitched a total
length of almost 1,800 feet; each stitch was 2 inches long.
5 Banks were raked and seeded. (Note: In the area shown here, banks could not be
graded to as shallow a slope as elsewhere in the project.)
-------
6 The coconut coir matting was pulled up over the seeded bank and staked into place.
7 Live plants were "plugged" through the mats and sewn or stapled in place. The
coconut-fiber material provides a temporary stabilizing mechanism while plants become
established. The matting will degrade in 3 to 5 years, and the plant roots will take over
the job of stabilizing the bank.
-------
The
^jolunteer L /i lonitor
The National Newsletter of Volunteer Water Quality Monitoring
Volume 11, No. 1, Spring 1999
Note: This information is provided for reference
purposes only. Although the information provided
here was accurate and current when first created, it is
now outdated.
Volunteer Add "Missing Piece"-Monitoring Restoration
by Donna Meyers
Over the last decade, restoration techniques have become more sophisticated. "Old
school" techniques, such as installing rock riprap or cement retaining walls along
streams, are increasingly being replaced with bioengineering methods that use natural
materials such as large woody debris and willows.
How well are the new techniques working? Unfortunately, the answer in most cases is,
We don't know. We don't know because projects aren't being monitored to determine
their long-term effectiveness.
Without monitoring, our understanding of what actually works remains poor. We aren't
learning from our mistakes, because we don't know that we have made them.
Clearly we still have a lot to learn about how to do successful restoration. A recent
article by Mathias Kondolf and Elisabeth Micheli of the University of California cites
several studies that found high failure rates in stream restoration projects. 1 For example,
a survey of 400 instream habitat enhancement structures in Alberta found one-third to
be of low or zero effectiveness. Another study of 161 aquatic habitat enhancement
structures on 15 streams in western Oregon and Washington found that 18 percent had
failed outright and 60 percent were damaged or ineffective.
Monitoring has been the "missing piece" in restoration, and volunteer monitoring groups
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are ideally equipped to supply this vital information. Right now, volunteers with the
Coastal Watershed Council are doing just that at Arana Creek in Santa Cruz, California
(see case study, below).
Adaptive management
Underlying the lack of monitoring is the notion that restoration projects are "completed"
once they have been installed. The truth is quite different: adjustments to restoration
work may be needed for months or even years after installation.
Recently, restorationists have begun using the term adaptive management, which is just
a fancy way of saying that you go back and look at what's happening at your restoration
site, and if something is not working as intended, you make adjustments. Obviously,
that "go back and look" step—i.e., monitoring—is indispensable for adaptive
management.
As an example of how adaptive management works, suppose that as part of a stream
restoration project you place gravel in the streambed with the goal of enhancing
spawning habitat. Following the winter season, you go back and find that most of the
gravel has been displaced or washed away entirely. It becomes obvious that your
understanding of the hydrology of the stream was not complete—apparently stream
flows and scouring capabilities are greater than you designed for. So you re-consult with
your hydrologist, who suggests a better area for placing gravel: 150 yards downstream,
at the tail of a pool, where flows are slower.
Fear of failure
Sometimes monitoring is neglected because people are afraid of finding out that a
project is not performing as well as expected. Ann Riley, an 18-year veteran of urban
stream restoration and the author of Restoring Streams in Cities, recently spoke about
this problem at an urban stream restoration conference. "We need to make mistakes,"
she said, "and then we need to make mistakes again. We revise our plans and structures
on the basis of experience. This is the core of the scientific method—hypothesize,
experiment, make a mistake, learn. But making mistakes is discouraged. In school, you
get a bad grade. On the job, you lose the promotion."
Riley then told about a technique used at a Coalition to Restore Urban Waters
conference to encourage people to talk about their mistakes and learn from them. "We
set up an open mike," said Riley, "and we called it the T-Screwed-Up' mike. The worse
the mistake, the louder the applause. If people misused the mike and talked about
successes, they were roundly booed."
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No money for monitoring
Funding for monitoring restoration can be very hard to find. Funders like seeing a
restoration project constructed—that's the "feel-good" part of the process. It's much
harder to get them interested in monitoring, which takes a long time and is largely
invisible. Even when monitoring is included in the original budget, cost overruns during
the construction phase often eat up the money earmarked for monitoring—because
monitoring is seen as secondary and relatively expendable.
Educating funders
I have found that funders are willing to support monitoring once they understand its
importance. For the Coastal Watershed Council's restoration project at Arana Creek, I
invited folks from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation'California Salmon
Initiative to visit the site. There, I pointed out exactly what we wanted to monitor and
explained why the information was crucial to a successful project. Once they saw the
need, the Foundation was happy to fund our pre-project monitoring.
Here are some points to emphasize when talking with potential funders about why
monitoring is important.
• Pre-project monitoring is even rarer than post-project monitoring, yet it's critical for
two reasons. First, understanding existing problems and conditions lets you design a
restoration project that will improve your stream's ecological health the most. Second,
pre-monitoring provides a quantified starting point against which you will be able to
measure the project's effectiveness.
• Post-project monitoring is essential for adaptive management. It's also the only way
to evaluate the project's long-term success. Explain to funders what parameters you will
track and what kinds of adaptations you will make if your monitoring tells you that the
project is not functioning as expected.
• The cost of monitoring is relatively low and the benefits are great. Long-term
monitoring not only benefits your own project but also becomes part of the overall
knowledge base about restoration, advancing our understanding about what works and
what doesn't.
Types of post-construction monitoring
Post-construction monitoring most often falls into one of three categories: (1)
implementation monitoring, (2) compliance monitoring, and (3) effectiveness
monitoring.
-------
The first two types are the most common and least expensive.
Unfortunately, they are also very limited. They are not long-
term, and they usually do not evaluate improvements to habitat.
Implementation monitoring simply asks whether the project was
built according to the construction plans. Compliance
monitoring is usually used to evaluate mitigation projects—for
example, a wetland that is being restored by a developer to
compensate for environmental damage elsewhere. It asks, Did
the project meet the permit requirements attached to it?
Effectiveness monitoring is the most important ecologically. It
also requires more money and effort, and a long-term
commitment (generally 3 to 10 years). Effectiveness monitoring
asks whether the project met the objectives of the restoration
plan. It includes questions like, Did the project result in more
pool habitat within the restoration area? Did canopy cover
increase to the extent specified in the plan?
Case study: Arana Creek
In Santa Cruz County, California, the Coastal Watershed Council, in partnership with
the Arana Gulch Watershed Alliance, has begun restoration of a 700-foot section of
Arana Creek. A volunteer monitoring program coordinated by the Watershed Council
has collected information to document pre-project water quality, macroinvertebrate
communities, and instream and riparian corridor conditions. The project plans are
completed and construction will begin this summer. Removal of nonnative plants, and
planting of natives, has already begun.
The restoration project aims to remedy problems associated with a cement fish ladder
constructed in the stream several years ago. The fish ladder structure dropped the
streambed elevation by almost 3 feet, resulting in an incised channel and streambank
failure. The nearly vertical walls along the stream have receded almost 3 feet over the
last three years, contributing many yards of sediment to downstream areas. Data from
our volunteer monitors showed decreased macroinvertebrate counts and diversity, and
increased sediment, downstream from the structure.
Our restoration plans call for resloping the streambank and stabilizing it with
bioengineering techniques such as willow revetments and wattles. With help from
volunteers, we are removing nonnatives and planting seeds collected from native
riparian species growing at the site.
Data on channel width
and water depth, such as
these volunteers are
collecting on a stream
near San Jose, California,
are neededfor restoration
planning and project
design.
-------
Pre-project monitoring
Extensive pre-project monitoring by Coastal Watershed Council volunteers helped
guide the design for the restoration. Data collected by volunteers included:
• Physical monitoring: Volunteers helped complete a longitudinal profile of
approximately 3,000 feet of stream and mapped cross-sections within the restoration
area. They also recorded stream flow information both during high water and in low-
flow months.
• Habitat monitoring: Using protocols developed by the California Department of
Fish and Game, volunteers conducted an instream habitat survey. They recorded
information about the number and size of pools, riffles, and runs along the restoration
area; the percent canopy cover; and the condition of the streambank both upstream and
downstream of the restoration site.
Post-restoration monitoring
The information collected by the volunteers helped us set quantitative habitat
enhancement goals for the project—goals like increasing canopy cover by 100 percent
over the next five years, increasing the amount of pool and riffle habitat by 50 percent,
and reducing nonnative plants by 75 percent over five years.
We designed our post-restoration monitoring program hand in hand with the restoration
plan so that it reflects the project's goals. Monitors will be looking for such changes as
increased pool habitat, increased canopy cover, improved bank stability, increased
macroinvertebrate diversity, and decreased nonnative plants. Monitoring will be
conducted by volunteers under the guidance of technical advisors.
The extensive pre-project data collected by the volunteers provides a baseline from
which we can evaluate how well the restoration is succeeding. If we find that some
goals are not being met, we will practice adaptive management. For example, our
restoration plan calls for placing large rootwads in the creek at certain places. The
rootwads are intended to cause scouring, which in turn will create pools. If we go back a
year later and find that in some areas scour pools have not formed, we will need to
either reposition or remove the rootwads in those areas.
The Coastal Watershed Council and the Arana Gulch Watershed Alliance are committed
to monitoring and maintaining the site for at least five years. Physical parameters,
biological populations, and habitat conditions will be monitored annually, giving
volunteers the chance to see firsthand how they have positively impacted the creek
whose stewards they have become.
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Donna Meyers is Executive Director of the Coastal Watershed Council, 303 Potrero St.,
#24, Santa Cruz, CA 95060; 831-426-9012; cwc_office@yahoo.com.
-------
The
^jolunteer L /i lonitor
The National Newsletter of Volunteer Water Quality Monitoring
Volume 11, No. 1, Spring 1999
Note: This information is provided for reference
purposes only. Although the information provided
here was accurate and current when first created, it is
now outdated.
Stand By Your Project: or, Don't Plant 'Em and Leave 'Em
by Brian Stark
Our first riparian revegetation project was installed in April of 1997.1 remember it as if
it were yesterday . . . probably because I was still working on it yesterday. Yes, long
after the fun of planting a few thousand trees, maintaining the site is still an ongoing
chore for the Land Conservancy of San Luis Obispo. In contrast, a project we installed
in the spring of 1998 requires much less maintenance today and costs us little in time
and money.
Why such a disparity in maintenance requirements and costs? The principal factor is
maintenance planning. In order for the environment to benefit from trees, the trees have
to be alive. Only through active maintenance will plants survive and a project be
successful over the long term.
Today when I think of doing a revegetation project I put much more thought into
planning for maintenance than into the logistics of planting day. Here are a few tricks
we've used to help us reduce maintenance costs and effort.
The timing of project installation makes a big difference. Here in central California,
where summers are long and dry, irrigation is a principal concern. Planting in the fall,
just prior to the rainy season, reduces irrigation needs as seasonal rains pick up the job.
In flood-prone areas, however, spring plantings followed by one summer of irrigation
have been more successful. If you irrigate, do so on a regular schedule planned well
ahead of time. One missed watering can kill the whole project.
-------
When we are working along a stream with grazing animals, animal management
becomes an important part of our maintenance strategy. This requires materials such as
fencing, as well as time for installation.
We've also learned that the animals themselves can be great project maintenance tools.
With proper planning and management, the right animal at the right time for the right
duration can do a lot of weed control without damaging new natives. Animals make
excellent "volunteers" because they work for food and bring their own tools!
At one of our sites, grasses were competing with native stock. We set up a temporary
enclosure and introduced cattle for a 6-hour period. Afterward we could see that the
cattle had eaten the grass and not the native shrubs.
Because animal management can be time-consuming and depends on intensive
monitoring, it is critical to plan ahead in conjunction with the land manager. Remember
that costs associated with animal control are recouped by reduced weeding costs.
Project maintenance can require significant labor resources. We do most of our
maintenance with volunteers. In fact, each site has a volunteer site steward who helps
manage maintenance activities. The site steward makes regular monitoring visits and
reports the site conditions back to the project manager. Site stewards also help recruit
and manage volunteers for the maintenance effort, and prepare monitoring and
maintenance reports.
I have saved my best hint for last: proactive weed control. Weeds are the biggest threat
to a new project, and pulling weeds is not much fun. It's much harder to retain a
volunteer force for weeding than planting. So, it's vital to plan ahead to reduce weed
growth on your site. There are several ways to do this, but the best way is mulch.
Around every new plant, apply wood chip mulch in a ring measuring at least 4 feet in
diameter. The mulch should be 3-4 inches deep at a minimum, but only 1/2 inch at the
immediate base of the plant (otherwise it will rot the stem).
Mulch does two important things: it reduces weed growth dramatically, and it helps
retain soil moisture, reducing watering costs. If you have sufficient mulch, apply it more
extensively on the project site to control weeds. Mulch should be included in your
project budget, but we have also obtained free mulch from local tree trimmers, highway
maintenance crews, and our municipal tree trimmers.
Through effective maintenance planning, the Land Conservancy of San Luis Obispo
County has reduced annual per-acre maintenance costs on newer projects to roughly half
that of our first projects. The improved maintenance has also resulted in increased plant
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growth, allowing new plants to compete more effectively with weeds. Now when I go to
monitor our newer enhancement sites I can bring my lunch . . . instead of my machete.
Brian B. Stark is Deputy Director of the Land Conservancy of San Luis Obispo County, California.
For more information, see http: www.slonet.ors vi' land con/
Bugs in the Web!
Two Websites offer macroinvertebrate descriptions and drawings
specifically aimed at volunteer monitors. Volunteer groups are welcome
to "steal" these materials for use in their own manuals and brochures.
The Field Guide to Freshwater Invertebrates, prepared by Leska S. Fore
and illustrated by Annabel Wildrick, is at http://www.seanet.com/~leska/.
The drawings can be downloaded in GIF format and opened in a word
processing or drawing program.
For another site that's full of bugs, check out
http://imc.lisd.kl2.mi.us/mscl/invert/inverts.html.
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^lolunteer L i7\onitor
The National Newsletter of Volunteer Water Quality Monitoring
Volume 11, No. Spring 1999
Note: This information is provided for reference
purposes only. Although the information provided
here was accurate and current when first created, it is
now outdated.
Funding for Community-Based Habitat
Restoration
Over the past four years, the National Marine Fisheries
Service (NMFS) Restoration Center has provided financial
support to 56 grassroots restoration projects through its
Community-Based Restoration Program. While the
projects are very diverse, all share these essential elements:
• direct, on-the-ground habitat restoration
• benefit to living marine resources
• community participation
The following examples illustrate the range of projects
funded by the Restoration Center:
• Wetland Restoration (Baltimore, MD). The National
Aquarium in Baltimore is coordinating the restoration of a small wetland in a highly
urban area. The geographical position of the marsh is such that high tides and heavy
rains deposit large amounts of trash and marine debris there. Community volunteers will
regularly remove this trash.
They will also work to eradicate invasive common reed (Phragmites australis) and plant
beneficial marsh vegetation.
A volunteer records trash
survey data at a wetland
restoration project coordinated
by the National Aquarium in
Baltimore.
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• Fish Passage (Petaluma, CA). At Adobe Creek, high
school students and other community volunteers constructed
a permanent step-pool fish ladder system for steelhead trout
and chinook salmon.
• Creek Restoration (Santa Rosa, CA). Brush Creek lost its
natural foliage when it was channelized for flood control.
Without shading, the water gets too hot for juvenile salmon
and steelhead trout to survive. The Brush Creek restoration
project's goal is to bring back the fish by planting trees to
provide shade.
In just two days, 200 high # Pepper Busters
school and elementary (Melbourne FL)
students planted 2,000 native X ...
, , , Brazilian pepper, an
trees along a 1.5-mile stretch . '
of Brush Creek. introduced normative tree,
has become the #1
invasive species in Florida. The trees grow to an
average height of 40 feet, and the leaves secrete a
substance that poisons other plants as well as birds.
Volunteer Pepper Busters, organized by the Marine
Resources Council of East Florida, remove the
pepper using the "cut stump" method. The trees are
cut down with a chain saw and the stumps are treated
with herbicide to prevent regrowth.
Seventh-graders from Radnor Middle
School plant native wetland shrubs
along a pond edge. The banks have
been covered with matting made from
natural coconut fiber, which will help
prevent erosion while the plants
become established.
The goal of the Community-Based Restoration
Program is to encourage hands-on, locally driven restoration efforts to restore coastal
fisheries habitat. Grants typically fall in the range of $5,000 to $50,000 and usually
cover a one-year period. The Restoration Center also partners with the Fishamerica
Foundation to jointly fund projects; to date, about 25 restoration projects have been
funded through this partnership.
For more information about funding opportunities, including proposal guidelines and application
deadlines, visit the NMFS Restoration Center Website at http:fAvww.nmfs.gov/habitat/pestoratioti/: or
call Robin Bruckner or Chris Doley at 301-713-0174.
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Monitoring Workshop
Each summer, the Student Watershed Research Project (SWRP) offers an
intensive 5-day technical training workshop in monitoring, designed for
teachers (8th' 12th grade and college), community organizations, and
professionals. Instructors include university professors, research
scientists, and classroom teachers. For detailed information visit
http://www.ogi.edu/satacad/swrp/ or contact Stacy Renfro, SWRP,
Saturday Academy/OGI, P.O. Box 91000, Portland, OR 97291; 503-748-
1363; renfro@admin.ogi.edu.
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^lolunteer L i7\onitor
The National Newsletter of Volunteer Water Quality Monitoring
Volume 11, No. Spring 1999
Note: This information is provided for reference
purposes only. Although the information provided
here was accurate and current when first created, it is
now outdated.
Restoring a Coastal Scrub Community
by Eleanor Ely
Marianne Kjobmand is showing a visitor around the dune revegetation project she
coordinates at Half Moon Bay State Beach, on the California coast about 25 miles south
of San Francisco.
Pointing with pride at a clump of big, healthy-looking bushes firmly rooted in the sand,
she says, "This lupine was planted last year by a group from a pharmaceutical
company."
A few steps further on
she points again: "See
the grayish plants on
that dune over there?
That's lizard tail. That
was planted by
students from
Woodside High
School." Waving her
arm toward some low
dunes closer to the
ocean, she adds, "Over
there is where a Girl
Scout troop pulled up
Girl Scouts, along with their parents and siblings, remove iceplant from
-------
and hauled away 120 dimes. The volunteers are careful to avoid damaging the small patches of
garbage bags of natives, like wild strawberry and beach primrose, which will now be able
i , i , ,, ,, to spread and fill in the area.
iceplant last month. F J
The whole tour goes on the same way: "Bay Area Action volunteers spread the mulch
on this area here... Kids from Sea Crest School planted this yarrow... Tomorrow,
volunteers from a bioscience company are coming out to pull wild mustard ..."
It sounds as if Kjobmand has gotten just about everyone in the whole county out here
weeding or planting. One begins to wonder if she is some kind of genius at rounding up
volunteers.
Well, she has to be. The area being revegetated is huge. It covers 40 acres, stretching
along 2-1/2 miles of dunes and marine terrace (the flat area behind the dunes)~and three
years ago, when the project started, 95 percent of it was covered with nonnative invasive
species.
The native coastal scrub community was destroyed in the late 1800s to make way for
farming on the fertile terraces. The goal of the Half Moon Bay Dune and Bluff
Restoration Project, funded by the California Department of Parks and Recreation, is to
re-establish the native scrub.
Although agriculture stopped in 1955 when the state acquired the land as a State Beach,
the natives did not return. "By that time," says Kjobmand, "so many nonnative weeds
and grasses had become established that the natives couldn't get a foothold." Kjobmand
explains that the weeds arrived along with farming, their seeds stowing away in hay
bales or on the coats of sheep or cattle.
"Some of the nonnatives are very aggressive," says Kjobmand. "Outside of their native
ecosystem, they don't have the natural competition with which they evolved. Wild
radish can grow 2 feet in a month—the natives don't have a chance."
The restoration work at Half Moon Bay is extremely labor-intensive. Almost all the
weeding and planting is being done by hand, by volunteers.
"Working by hand, you can specifically pull weeds while leaving the native plants,"
explains Kjobmand. She adds that controlled burning, a technique used in other
locations to kill nonnatives while allowing most natives to survive, can't be used here
because of nearby houses. Power tools can't be used either, because of concern that they
could harm birds, snakes, or other wildlife.
As every gardener knows, pulling weeds is never a one-time activity. Volunteers return
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repeatedly to weed revegetated sites.
"Wild radish, mustard, and poison hemlock seeds are
viable for three years," says Kjobmand. "If we can pull
the young plants before they go to seed for three years in
a row, the nonnative seed bank in the soil will be very
much decreased."
"Ongoing maintenance is really important to include in
your initial project planning and funding," she adds.
"Without help, the newly planted native seedlings won't
survive. There's no way a project like this could be a one-
year project, no matter how much you did."
The planting is just as painstaking as the weeding. Volunteers collect seeds from native
plants like beach primrose, yarrow, and coyote bush. Local nurseries grow the seeds,
and in a year or so, when they reach gallon size, volunteers plant them.
"We hope that once we bring back the native plants, we'll also get more native insects
and birds," Kjobmand says. "We're especially interested in improving habitat for three
threatened or endangered species—the San Francisco garter snake, the red-legged frog,
and the snowy plover."
About 6,500 volunteer hours have gone into the project to date. So, what is Kjobmand's
secret formula for rounding up so many volunteers, from so many different
organizations?
"You just keep trying," she says.
Kjobmand has put articles and announcements in the newsletters of native plant
societies, Audubon, and similar organizations. She goes to fairs, bringing a display and
piles of brochures to hand out. She posted information about the project on the Web at
www. volunteermatch. com, which is (as the name suggests) a service that matches
volunteers and projects.
High schools are an excellent source of volunteers, especially since students are
required to perform 35 hours of community service before graduation. Kjobmand got
lots of responses when she listed her project in a newsletter that's distributed to schools.
"Whenever I'm not in the field, I'm recruiting," says Kjobmand.
Girl Scouts from San Carlos,
California, plant motive shrubs.
For more information on the Half Moon Bay Dune and Bluff Restoration Project, contact Marianne
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Kiobmand. Half Moon Bay State Beach, Department of Resource Ecology, 59 Kelly Ave., Half Moon
Bay, CA 94019; 650-726-8801.
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^lolunteer L i7\onitor
The National Newsletter of Volunteer Water Quality Monitoring
Volume 11, No. Spring 1999
Note: This information is provided for reference
purposes only. Although the information provided
here was accurate and current when first created, it is
now outdated.
Native Plant Nursery
In 1994, the U.S. Army closed its base at the Presidio in San Francisco and the land
became part of the Golden Gate National Recreational Area (GGNRA), administered by
the National Parks Service. GGNRA made a commitment to conserve and restore the
Presidio's native plant communities, and established the Presidio Native Plant Nursery
to provide native plants for use in revegetation efforts.
From the beginning, the nursery was conceived as a largely volunteer project. "Since
we're right in the middle of an urban area, we wanted the neighbors to be involved in
stewardship—to feel that it is truly their backyard," says Betty Young, GGNRA Nursery
Specialist.
The Presidio Native Plant Nursery is a
big operation, with two large
greenhouses and several shade houses
(where plants are covered by a shade
cloth but otherwise exposed to the
elements). Each year, the nursery
grows 50'60,000 native plants, of more
than 75 species.
Under the direction of a small paid
staff, volunteers do everything from
seed collection to propagation to
planting. Seeds are harvested within the
Volunteers transplant seedlings into pots at Presidio
Native Plant Nursery.
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Presidio to maintain genetic integrity. Winter is planting season, when volunteers brave
mud and rain to plant new seedlings in salt marshes, along streams, and on dunes. Last
year community volunteers, AmeriCorps members, school classes, and corporate groups
contributed over 10,000 hours of work.
Young explains that the Presidio's nursery is different from a commercial nursery.
"Commercial nurseries usually grow plants from cuttings, not seed," she says. "Also,
they're set up to grow huge batches of one species, while we grow small batches of
many different species. We are very precise in our record-keeping and labeling. We
want to be confident that we know exactly where each plant came from."
It would be prohibitively expensive to pay for this kind of careful, labor-intensive work.
"With the volunteers," says Young, "we can make it work economically and we can do
it right ecologically."
Funding Directory
River Network's 1999 Directory of Funding Sources for Grassroots River
and Watershed Conservation Groups lists foundation, corporate, and
government funding sources. For each source, the 70-page Directory
provides contact information, deadlines, grant sizes, and a brief
description of the funder's particular interests. Also includes a section on
writing grant proposals and a bibliography of state and local foundation
directories.
Available from River Network, 520 SW 6th Avenue, Suite 1130,
Portland, OR 97204-1535; 503-241-3506. $35 (or join River Network
and get a free copy).
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The
^jolunteer L /i lonitor
The National Newsletter of Volunteer Water Quality Monitoring
Volume 11, No. 1, Spring 1999
Note: This information is provided for reference
purposes only. Although the information provided
here was accurate and current when first created, it is
now outdated.
Using Monitoring Data to Choose Planting Sites for
Underwater Grasses
by Peter Bergstrom
This century has witnessed declines in submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) in many
estuaries and coastal areas. The loss has serious consequences because these underwater
grasses—defined as vascular plants that grow in shallow water up to the surface or
slightly above it—are keystone species within their ecosystems. Among other benefits,
they provide habitat for fish and food for birds, absorb nutrients from the water column,
improve water clarity, and produce oxygen.
Discouraging results
In an effort to bring back these crucial grasses, many volunteer and professional groups
are experimenting with planting SAV. I use the word "experimenting" because so far the
success rate has been disappointingly low—and not just for volunteers. In Chesapeake
Bay, scientists and other professionals have attempted SAV planting at some 50 sites.
While many sites showed growth after 1 year, fewer than 10% still had plants 2 or 3
years later.
A 90% failure rate sounds bad enough, but the full story may be even more depressing.
Since it's difficult to grow SAV in nurseries, SAV species for planting projects are
commonly harvested from another part of the estuary. If the donor beds do not
revegetate fully, a failed planting could actually represent a net loss of SAV in the
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estuary as a whole.
Can we do better?
In Chesapeake Bay, we have found that
careful choice of sites and species
improves the chances for planting
success. This is where volunteer
monitoring data comes into play. The
process of targeting sites and species
relies on several kinds of data—especially
Secchi depth, water temperature, and
surface salinity—that are frequently
collected by volunteers.
Choosing sites and species is a three-step
process:
1. Determine what general areas in the estuary have good conditions for SAV.
2. Choose the best species to plant in those general areas.
3. Pinpoint the best specific sites for planting within the general areas.
Step 1. Finding good general areas
To support SAV growth, an area must provide adequate light and also be deep enough
to keep the SAV submerged at all times. SAV won't grow in places that are exposed at
low tide, or in water that's too murky or too deep for adequate light penetration. In very
murky water, the only areas with enough light may be exposed at low tide, leaving no
place where SAV can grow.
Thus, the first task in choosing planting sites is to map out the zones that provide the
needed light levels and water depth. For this you need two sets of data: growing season
median Secchi depth, available from volunteer monitoring or other sources; and tidal
range, which can be found at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA) Website (listed below).
If you have additional monitoring data—especially for total suspended solids,
chlorophyll a, dissolved inorganic nitrogen, or dissolved inorganic phosphorus—these
can also help identify good general areas for planting.
Volunteers plant submerged aquatic vegetation in
waist-deep water in Chesapeake Bay.
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The Chesapeake Bay Program Website (listed below) provides the specific values for
Secchi depth and other water quality parameters that meet SAV habitat requirements in
Chesapeake Bay.
Step 2. Choosing species
Different species of SAV have different tolerances to temperature and salinity (for
example, eelgrass cannot tolerate high temperatures). Thus, data showing the annual
ranges for surface salinity and water temperature will help you decide which species to
plant. Here again, information collected by volunteer monitors can play a crucial role.
Step 3. Pinpointing the best spots for planting
Steps 1 and 2 can be done without leaving your desk. Now it's time to go out in the field
and take a closer look at prospective sites. Visit sites at both low and high tide. Look for
sites with broad shoals about 0.5 ' 1 meter deep at low tide. The presence of some SAV
growing at or near the site is a good sign. Check the sediment type—like Goldilocks,
SAV prefers a bed that's not too hard and not too soft.
Pick sites with low to moderate wave action. Heavy waves will wash out SAV before
roots can get established. On the other hand, some water circulation is desirable, to
prevent SAV from becoming choked with algae.
Avoid sites that have any obvious threats to SAV—for example, mute swans, cownose
rays, human activities that disrupt bottom sediments, or nearby potential sources of
contaminated runoff (golf courses, marinas, etc.).
While the above site selection process should improve SAV planting results, success is
by no means guaranteed, so it pays to proceed slowly and carefully. It's best to plant two
or three specific sites in the same general area, to find the one where SAV grows best.
We recommend starting with small test plantings (500 - 2,000 plants) at each site, and
monitoring their success for several years before doing a large planting.
Keep in mind that in some states—including Maryland—a permit is required for
collecting and planting SAV.
Finally, the most important advice of all: Don't do any SAV planting without advice
from experts in your area! SAV experts may be found at a nearby research university or
marine science center; readers can also contact me (address below) for some
recommendations.
More detailed guidance on selecting sites, as well as for the actual planting, will be
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provided in a document being prepared by Maryland Department of Natural Resources
staff, with input from myself and other managers and researchers with experience
planting SA V in Chesapeake Bay. If you would like to receive a copy when it is
completed, send an email to tparham@dnr.state.md.us, or write to Tom Parham, MD
DNR, Tawes Office Building, Annapolis, MD 21401.
Websites:
• For tidal range data: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
Website at http://co-ops.nos.noaa.gov/bencli.html. Look for the nearest stations. Tidal
range is the MHHW value, if one is given, or the MHW value. (MHHW = mean higher
high water; MHW = mean high water.)
• For Chesapeake Bay Program SAV information, including habitat requirements:
www.chesapeakebay.net/bayprogram/facts/sav.htm (also has links to related sites.); and
http://www.dnr. state .lnd.us/bay/sav/.
Peter Bergstrom is a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Annapolis, MD, and chair of
the SAV Workgroup of the Chesapeake Bay Program. He may be reached at 410-573-4554;
peter bergstrom@mail.jws.gov.
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The
^jolunteer L /i lonitor
The National Newsletter of Volunteer Water Quality Monitoring
Volume 11, No. 1, Spring 1999
Note: This information is provided for reference
purposes only. Although the information provided
here was accurate and current when first created, it is
now outdated.
Volunteer Monitors Get Voice on National Council
by Linda T. Green
In August 1997 I received an intriguing phone call from the U.S. Geological Survey's
(USGS) Office of Water Information. Would I be interested in representing the
volunteer monitoring community on a newly formed council—the National Water
Quality Monitoring Council?
I had a lot of questions, the first being, How many other volunteer monitoring
representatives will there be?
The answer: Just you.
How big is the Council?--Thirty-five members, from federal, state, tribal, and local
governments, watershed groups, universities, and the private sector.
How often does it meet?~Three or four times a year, for two to three days.
I accepted the invitation to join, and not long afterward found myself sitting with the
rest of the Council in a gray, windowless room at USGS headquarters in Reston, VA. It
didn't take me long to discover, much to my chagrin, that most of my fellow Council
members had very limited knowledge of volunteer monitoring. So I set myself the task
of educating these influential and concerned folks. My goal is to make sure the efforts of
the volunteer monitoring community are recognized and applauded, and integrated into
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the nationwide water quality monitoring strategy.
You may be thinking, What is the National Water Quality Monitoring Council, and why
does it exist? Here's what I've learned.
The Council is co-chaired by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the
USGS. It is officially charged with implementing a nationwide strategy to improve
water quality monitoring, assessment, and reporting. If this sounds like a big task, it is.
At first, I was nearly overwhelmed with the alphabet soup of agency acronyms and
spent a lot of time listening to agency representatives discuss how they were working
hard to collaborate with each other. Apparently it had been a big hurdle just to get some
agencies to agree that other agencies could produce credible data (sound familiar?).
Elizabeth Fellows from EPA spoke eloquently about the need for data "harmony" rather
than a lock-step use of "approved" methods. I soon recognized that many issues we as
volunteer monitors face were mirrored in the Council's discussions.
One of the Council's major goals is to promote the use of comparable methods by
different organizations and in different parts of the country. Another important task is to
prepare an on-line compendium of monitoring methods, with guidance on their uses.
Is the Council aware of the wide world of volunteer monitoring? They are now! Several
volunteer monitoring colleagues and I have made presentations to the Council and also
delivered volunteer monitoring papers at the first National Water Quality Monitoring
Conference, in 1998.1 am now chair of the Outreach Goal group and on the planning
committee for the next conference.
The second National Water Quality Monitoring Conference will be held April 25'27,
2000, in Austin, Texas (for conference updates, check http://nwqmc. site .net/). I am very
excited to announce that the Sixth National Volunteer Monitoring Conference has just
been scheduled in conjunction with this conference (see announcement below),
providing volunteer monitors and professionals with the opportunity to learn from each
other.
For more information on the National Water Quality Monitoring Council, see
http: //water, usss. gov/wicp/.
Linda Green is the Program Director for University of Rhode Island Watershed Watch.
She may be reached at uriww@etal.uri.edu; 401-874-2905.
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Date Set for National Volunteer Monitoring
Conference
The date and location for the Sixth National Volunteer Monitoring
Conference have just been set. The conference will be held April 27'29,
2000, at the Hyatt ~ Town Lake in downtown Austin, Texas, directly
following the National Monitoring Conference (see above). Save the
date!
More information will follow soon on the EPA volunteer monitoring
Website (http://www.epa.gov/owow/monitoring/vol.html) and in the Fall
issue of The Volunteer Monitor. All newsletter subscribers will also
receive a mailed conference announcement.
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The
^jolunteer L /i lonitor
The National Newsletter of Volunteer Water Quality Monitoring
Volume 11, No. 1, Spring 1999
Note: This information is provided for reference
purposes only. Although the information provided
here was accurate and current when first created, it is
now outdated.
Making Your Restoration Project Happen
by Carol Cloen
Since 1992, the Delaware Riverkeeper Network has been restoring riparian buffers with
bioengineering, or "soft," technologies. Unlike traditional "hard" engineering techniques
that rely heavily on concrete and rocks to stabilize streambanks, bioengineering makes
use of living and dead plant materials. The end result is a vegetated streambank held in
place by plant roots. (For more on bioengineering techniques, see "Using
Bioengineering to Restore Paper Mill Run")
As of this writing over 1,000 volunteers have worked on Riverkeeper-initiated projects
to restore almost 5 miles of streambanks. Besides sponsoring our own restoration
projects, Riverkeeper also advises and supports a number of other citizen groups,
government agencies, businesses, and researchers active in riparian restoration.
Through our work we've come to realize that while all restoration projects begin with
the desire to do the ecologically friendly thing, that desire is tempered by the realities of
money, site location, labor availability, and methodology. A well-developed plan is
essential—but so is the ability to adapt that plan as needed to deal with changing
conditions. What follows are a few of the lessons we've learned:
1. Be practical in selecting sites
In theory, a streambank restoration project starts with identifying the most severely
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eroded sites. In reality, the most degraded site is not
necessarily the one you work on. Site selection is
frequently dictated by where you can do the work
and includes factors such as landowner interest,
accessibility to work crews, and finances.
In order to showcase bioengineering as an
affordable, ecologically sound alternative to
concrete and riprap, the Perkiomen Valley
Watershed Association decided to construct
a Demonstration Restoration Project.
Despite the fact that there were plen ty of
eroded sites in the watershed, it took almost
two years of searching to find a landowner
who believed bioengineering would work
and was willing to participate. The project
was finally situated on township-owned land,
at Groffs Mill Park on the East Branch of
the Perkiomen.
Ideally, a demonstration project is carried out at an easily accessible site where
the needed restoration is simple and straightforward. While the Groffs Mill site
was accessible, the restoration was not simple. The steep and severely eroded
bank was closely bordered by a park road, making changes to the grade difficult.
In addition, the bank was routinely scoured by ice jams. The Perkiomen Valley
Watershed Association overcame all the obstacles and in the spring of 1997
partners from the county, township, local citizen groups, and a design firm
regraded the slopes and installed coconut coir logs and mats, ice deflectors, and
plants.
2. Be realistic in defining goals
After analyzing both the site and all the available data, you may find that what the site
needs and what you and the landowner are willing or able to do are not the same thing.
By defining realistic project goals in the beginning and sticking to them, you can get
maximum benefit from the effort and money invested.
Like many urbanizing watersheds, the Wyomissing Creek suffers from increasing
rates of erosion and nutrien t pollution. It also supports a small trout population.
To completely correct the degradation would have meant regrading and
stabilizing thousands offeet of eroded bank, redirecting stormwater inputs,
excluding livestock from the channel, and reforesting—all at a cost of hundreds
The Delaware
Riverkeeper Network
The Delaware River watershed
encompasses some 13,000 square miles
and includes parts of Delaware, New
Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania.
Since 1988, the Delaware Riverkeeper
Network has been actively working to
strengthen citizen protection of this
watershed.
Riverkeeper's four main program areas-
-advocacy, volunteer monitoring,
enforcement, and riparian restoration-
are all parts of the same puzzle, each
contributing a piece toward the
protection and restoration of the
watershed.
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of thousands of dollars.
In defining its goals for the restoration of the creek, the Tulpehocken Chapter of
Trout Unlimited decided early on to maximize its resources by focusing primarily
on reforesting the entire stream. It is hoped that, over time, reforestation will
decrease erosion and allow the stream to heal.
3. Find partners
While our tactics may differ, the goal of protecting and restoring ecosystems is shared
among environmental organizations, businesses, and regulatory agencies. Developing
partnerships with these groups can ease the burden of permitting, and bring additional
monies, bodies, and technical expertise to the work. Seeking professional support at the
very beginning of the project can help you avoid pitfalls.
The Perkiomen Valley Chapter of Trout Unlimited (TU) tackled their first
stream bank fencing and planting project by themselves, and the small
organization barely survived the stress. "One day, three volunteers showed up
and we had to move about 10 tons of rock," recalls Lou Wentz, Conservation
Coordinator for the chapter. "We just looked at each other and said, 'Never
again!"
Soon afterward, though, a farmer asked TU to help him install a similar project.
"By that time," says Wentz, "we'd had a chance to step back and take a breath,
and we were starting to feel good about the positive effects of the fence." So
rather than say no, the chapter asked the Delaware Riverkeeper Network to take
the financial and technical lead on the project.
Additional partnerships led to the Pennsylvania Game Commission and U.S.
Fish & Wildlife Service fencing the stream and installing cattle crossings,
reducing Riverkeeper's out-of-pocket costs from over $15,000 to less than
$5,000. Meanwhile, TU volunteers wielding chainsaws worked to clear the
nonnative invasive plant multiflora rose from the streamside buffer zone, and
Riverkeeper's science consultants at the Patrick Center for Environmental
Research contributed technical expertise and designed a long-term monitoring
plan.
4. Designate a project coordinator
Coordination—the least glamorous part of a restoration project—includes negotiating
with landowners, keeping track of the budget, ordering materials, scheduling deliveries,
recruiting volunteers, hiring and scheduling contractors, renting tools . . . the list goes on
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and on! Our experience is that each site needs its own manager who is ultimately
responsible for shepherding the job through to completion.
5. Take good care of volunteers
For larger projects, it's a good idea to assign a separate person to do volunteer
recruitment—a project in itself! Restoration work is labor-intensive and without bodies
there is no project.
It's also important to determine what types of work should be done by volunteers and
what might be better left to professionals. The staff time needed to train and supervise
volunteers to correctly install coir logs and mats, for example, may be more than you
can afford. Identify age- and strength-appropriate tasks as well—with supervision, 10-
year-olds can plant a tree, but probably shouldn't swing a 20-pound sledge hammer!
Lastly, but most importantly, reward both your staff and volunteers—soda, lunch, sun
block, and a boom box can go a long way toward relieving dry throats and sore muscles.
6. Involve the community
Community support is essential to restoration work—not just for funding and volunteer
recruitment, but to begin the work of changing the laws and attitudes that necessitated
the project in the first place. Get schools, churches, and town councils involved in your
projects. Hold press conferences at the site. Mail out pamphlets. Talk to the people next
door to address their concerns. By including the community in your plans you invest
them in the project and head off problems down the road.
In particular, don't forget to involve the people who will be responsible for maintaining
the site when you're done. We know of two projects that failed to include the
maintenance crew in the planning process, with significant consequences. Because they
weren't aware of what was expected of them, one crew inadvertently mowed down the
newly planted vegetation, while the plants at the other site fell victim to an overzealous
application of herbicide!
Carol Cloen is the Riparian Restoration Manager for the Delaware Riverkeeper Network. She may be
reached at Delaware Riverkeeper Network, Schuylkill Office; 610-469-6005; srk@worldlynx.net.
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Equipment Suppliers
Two builders of monitoring equipment—Tom Lawrence of
Lawrence Enterprises and Will Young of Aquatic Research
Instruments—have earned especially high praise from
volunteer monitoring groups.
"These suppliers really have the needs of volunteer monitors
in mind," says Jeff Schloss, coordinator of New Hampshire
Lakes Lay Monitoring Program. "They both have a lot of
experience with volunteer groups, and they're willing to
modify equipment to meet a group's needs."
Lawrence Enterprises features an inexpensive Secchi disk
(with a fiberglass measuring tape that doesn't stretch),
viewscopes, water samplers, macroinvertebrate sampling
supplies such as nets and artificial substrates, and many other instruments
items. For a complete product list, visit the Website at
http://www.acadia.net/h2oequip/ or contact Lawrence Enterprises, P.O.
Box 344, Seal Harbor, ME 04675; ph. 207-276-5746.
Aquatic Research Instruments offers several water samplers, including
one for dissolved oxygen; a variety of plankton nets; Surber samplers;
and lots more. For more information see http://www.aquaticresearch.com
or contact Aquatic Research Instruments, P.O. Box 93, #1 Hayden Creek
Rd, Lenhi ID 83465; ph. 208-756-8433.
Guide to Clean Water Act
Intimidated by the thought of trying to decipher the Clean Water Act?
Here's help. The Clean Water Act: An Owner's Manual manages to
translate legalese into language you can understand and use. This
attractive, down-to-earth book from River Network explains critical
sections of the Clean Water Act, tells how to get involved in regulatory
decisions, and provides useful references, Websites, and other resources.
157 pages; order from River Network, 520 SW 6th Avenue, Suite 1130,
Portland, OR 97204-1535; 503-241-3506. $25.
Dissolved
Oxygen
Water
Sampler-
Aquatic
Research
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The
^jolunteer L /i lonitor
The National Newsletter of Volunteer Water Quality Monitoring
Volume 11, No. 1, Spring 1999
Note: This information is provided for reference
purposes only. Although the information provided
here was accurate and current when first created, it is
now outdated.
Restoration Resources
Firehock, Karen, and Jacqueline Doherty. A Citizens' Streambank Restoration
Handbook. Izaak Walton League of America. 1995. This introductory handbook offers
affordable, ecologically sound approaches that community groups can use to help
restore streams. Stressing the importance of the total watershed system, it discusses land
use impacts to streams, the role of streamside vegetation, forces that shape streams, and
techniques for diagnosing stream health. Streambank stabilization methods such as
planting, reshaping banks, installing live stakes, and using fascines (bundles of live
woody cuttings) are explained. Includes two detailed case studies and extensive
bibliography, plus a 60-page supplement ("Restoring the Range") on managing and
restoring grazed riparian areas. 171 pages. Order from Izaak Walton League of
America, 707 Conservation Lane, Gaithersburg, MD 20878; 800-BUG-IWLA. $20.
(Companion video also available; see below.)
Hunter, Christopher J. Better Trout Habitat: A Guide to Stream Restoration and
Management. Montana Land Reliance and Island Press. 1991. This highly readable
guide to the science and art of habitat restoration for trout and other salmonids stresses
the importance of looking at the whole watershed, including land uses. Excellent
sections on stream behavior and fish habitat are followed by discussion of various
instream structures for habitat enhancement. Case studies of urban, rural, and forested
streams highlight a variety of restoration techniques. Illustrated with photos and
beautifully detailed drawings. 350 pages. Island Press, Box 7, Covelo, CA, 95428; 800-
828-1302. $30+ $5.75 S&H.
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Riley, Ann L. Restoring Streams in Cities: A
Guide for Planners, Policymakers, and Citizens.
Island Press. Part how-to manual for stream
restoration, part historical overview of floodplain
management in the United States, this thorough and
well-documented book explains what's wrong with
traditional engineering approaches and shows how
to use ecologically friendly methods to restore urban
streams. 423 pages. Island Press, Box 7, Covelo,
CA, 95428; 800-828-1302. Single copies $28 +
$5.75 S&H.
Federal Interagency Stream Restoration Working
Group. Stream Corridor Restoration: Principles,
Processes, and Practices. 1998. This mammoth
book (nearly 600 pages), produced by a workgroup
of 15 federal agencies, is so comprehensive that it
practically constitutes an entire course in basic
stream ecology and restoration. Colorful and well-
illustrated, it is intended for both the professional ant
processes, biology, and chemistry; restoration planning and implementation; and
monitoring. Appendices summarize specific restoration techniques. Though the sheer
size can be daunting (the table of contents runs to 15 pages and there are 32 pages of
references, not organized by subject), this should prove to be a very valuable resource.
Order from NTIS, 800-553-NTIS; $71 + shipping (ask for PB98158348); or download
from http://www.usda. gov/stream restoration/. Also available from NTIS on CD-ROM
for $60 (ask for PB98502487).
Boquet River Association. How to Hold Up Banks: Using All the Assets. 1996. This
booklet contains very practical, realistic advice from a small nonprofit organization that
has organized and carried out dozens of streambank erosion control projects. 60 pages.
$8, from Boquet River Association, Inc., c/o Essex Co. Government Center, Box 217,
Elizabethtown, NY 12932; 518-873-3688.
USDA, Natural Resources Conservation Service. Streambank and Shoreline
Protection (USDA Engineering Field Handbook, Chapter 16). 1996. More technical
than most of the resources listed here, this handbook includes detailed instructions for
protecting streambanks through bioengineering as well as more traditional methods.
Covers bank reshaping, live stakes, fascines, branchpacking, cribwalls, brushmattresses,
rock riprap, coconut fiber rolls, rock gabions, and more. 141 pages. Order from NTIS; 1-
800-553-NTIS (ask for PB98114358). $33.
Advisors and
Reviewers Needed
The Izaak Walton League of
America is planning a revision of
its Citizen's Streambank
Restoration Handbook and would
welcome input from people who
have worked with volunteers to
carry out restoration projects
using bioengineering techniques.
Anyone who can offer advice or
serve as a reviewer for the revised
manual is invited to contact Julie
Vincentz Middleton at 800-BUG-
IWLA ext. 223 or 301-548-0150
ext. 223; email
jvincent@iwla.org.
the layperson. Covers stream
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Illinois State Water Survey. Field Manual of Urban Stream Restoration. 1998. This
fairly technical manual presents methods used in several Midwestern urban streams for
pool and riffle creation and streambank stabilization. Many photos and drawings. 146
pages. Available from Conservation Technology Information Center, 1220 Potter Dr.,
Room 170, West Lafayette, IN 47906; 765-494-9555; ctic@ctic.purdue.edu. Single
copy $25; additional copies $20.
IL State Water Survey has also produced a number of videos illustrating stream
restoration techniques. $35 each; for a complete list, contact Jon Rodsater at IL SWS,
P.O. Box 697, Peoria, IL 61652-0697; 309-671-3196.
Finlayson, Christine. Tools, Trees, and Transformation. The Wetlands Conservancy.
1997. This collection of 25 stories about restoration projects in the Portland, Oregon,
area is rich in real-life experience. Nearly every story discusses the difficulties and
hurdles overcome and the lessons learned. The projects described are all citizen-
initiated, and many involve school classes, making this book especially useful for
teachers. 137 pages. The Wetlands Conservancy, P.O. Box 1195, Tualatin, OR 97062;
503-691-1394. $15+ $3 S&H.
Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. Pennsylvania Stream ReLeaf
Forest Buffer Toolkit. 1998. Practical instructions for planting trees to create buffer
zones along streams. Topics include project design, types and sizes of plants to use, site
preparation, tools and equipment, and planting methods. Plant lists are specific to
Pennsylvania. 39 pages + appen-dices. Available from Pennsylvania Dept. of
Environmental Protection, Bureau of Watershed Conservation, 717-787-5259. Free.
Pyle, Vic III, ed. The Long Island Sound Conservation Blueprint. Save the Sound,
Inc. 1998. Stressing simple techniques that are practical for citizen groups, the Blueprint
starts with the basics (What Is a Habitat? What Is an Estuary?) and proceeds to tips on
building partnerships, finding funding, and obtaining permits. Provides general
guidelines (but not detailed instructions) for coastal restoration techniques, including
dune planting, fishway installation, and tidal wetland restoration. Very complete
bibliography. About 200 pages, in looseleaf binder. $15 from Save the Sound, 185
Magee Ave., Stamford, CT 06902; 888-SAVE LIS.
A Citizen's Guide to Wetland Restoration. EPA Region 10. 1994. This booklet is
aimed at laypeople, especially those with a wetland on their property. It provides
guidance for simple, low-tech methods such as planting native plants and controlling
nonnatives, enhancing wildlife habitat (e.g., installing nest boxes), and removing
disturbances (e.g., fencing to restrict access by domestic animals). Includes a native
plant guide for the Pacific Northwest. 71 pages. Free; order EPA #910-R-94-006 from
EPA Region 10, 1200 6th Ave., Seattle, WA 98101; 206-553-1200.
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Hellmund, Paul. Planning Trails with Wildlife in Mind. Colorado State Parks. 1998.
Only recently have people begun to seriously consider the impacts of trails on plants and
animals. This handbook provides many useful "rules of thumb" for those who may be
constructing or rerouting a trail as part of a restoration project. 51 pages. For a copy,
send SASE, 9x12, with 6 first-class stamps to Colorado State Parks'Trails Program,
1313 Sherman St., Room 618, Denver, CO 80203; or download from
http://www.dnr.state.co.us/parks/. For multiple copies, call 303-866-3203 ext. 306.
Journal
Ecological Restoration/North America (formerly Restoration and Management
Notes).
The remarkable thing about this journal is that the reader is as likely to encounter a
reference to Prometheus or a quote from an anthropologist as a technical report on
restoration methods. Recent articles have dealt with such diverse topics as germination
of prairie seed, the debate over removing tamarisk (a nonnative shrub), and public
attitudes about ecological restoration. Community-based restoration projects are a
frequent feature. Each issue includes extensive abstracts and reviews of related
publications and Websites.
To subscribe, contact Journal Division, Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 2537 Daniels St.,
Madison, WI 53718-6772; 608-224-3880. Individual subscriptions $29/year. (Or join
the Society for Ecological Restoration (SER) and receive the journal as part of your
membership. For information about SER, see Society for Ecological Restoration.)
Funding
Restore America's Estuaries. Funding for Habitat Restoration Projects: A
Compendium of Current Federal Programs. 1998. Federal funding for restoration is
scattered among different agencies and can be very hard to track down. This 42-page
booklet organizes federal funding programs into an accessible reference guide. Includes
useful comments on the extent to which each funding program supports habitat
restoration projects. First copy free, additional copies $5; from RAE, 1200 New York
Avenue, NW, Suite 400, Washington, DC 20005; 202-289-2379; or download from
www.estuaries.org. (Note: An updated report should be posted on the Website by
September.)
Background Information
Leopold, Luna B. A View of the River. 1994. Harvard University Press, Cambridge,
MA.
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Rosgen, David. Applied River Morphology. 1996. Wildland Hydrology, 1481 Stevens
Lake Road, Pagosa Springs, CO 81147.
Gray, Donald H. and Robbin B. Sotir. Biotechnical and Soil Bioengineering Slope
Stabilization: A Practical Guide for Erosion Control. 1996. John Wiley & Sons.
Kusler, Jon and Mary Kentula. Wetland Creation and Restoration: The Status of the
Science. 1990. 616 pages. Island Press.
Videos
Urban Stream Restoration: A Video Tour of Ecological Restoration Techniques
with Ann Riley. A 61-minute documentary about six urban stream restoration projects.
It covers a variety of restoration techniques, including soil bioengineering, recreating
stream shape, and daylighting creeks, and also discusses how communities were
involved and where funding came from. $39.99 + $5 S&H from Nolte Media, 405-A
West College Ave., Santa Rosa, CA 95401; ph. 707-579-3902; fax 707-544-0499.
Restoring America's Streams. Companion to IWLA's Citizen's Streambank
Restoration Handbook (see above); explains stream processes and causes of stream
instability, and demonstrates restoration techniques that use native vegetation. Includes
several case studies. 28 minutes. $20 from Izaak Walton League of America, 707
Conservation Lane, Gaithersburg, MD 20878; 800-BUG-IWLA.
Wetland Restoration: Steps to Success. Techniques for wetland restoration; includes
use of native plants, and when and where to plant. 21 minutes. $20 from The Wetlands
Conservancy, 503-691-1394.
Websites
• http://www.epa.gov/owow/wetlands/restore/ . EPA's restoration Website includes
information on 100+ projects from around the country, organized by state.
• http://www.habitat-restoration.com . Restoration bibliography, events listings, and
organizations. Many links to other useful sites.
• http://www.nmfs.gov/habitat/restoration/ . National Marine Fisheries Service
(NMFS) Office of Habitat Restoration.
• http://http://ser.org/. Information about the Society for Ecological Restoration.
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• http://www.bioengineering.com. Contains useful discussion of bioengineering and a
bibliography of bioengineering publications.
• http://www.wetlandtraining.com. Lists professional training workshops offered by
the Wetland Training Institute; topics include wetland construction and restoration, and
riparian restoration.
Advisors and Reviewers Needed
The Izaak Walton League of America is planning a revision of its Citizen's Streambank
Restoration Handbook and would welcome input from people who have worked with
volunteers to carry out restoration projects using bioengineering techniques. Anyone
who can offer advice or serve as a reviewer for the revised manual is invited to contact
Julie Vincentz Middleton at 800-BUG-IWLA ext. 223 or 301-548-0150 ext. 223; email
jvincent@iwla.org.
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The
^jolunteer L /i lonitor
The National Newsletter of Volunteer Water Quality Monitoring
Volume 11, No. 1, Spring 1999
Note: This information is provided for reference
purposes only. Although the information provided
here was accurate and current when first created, it is
now outdated.
Learning Science Through Restoration
by Jim Martin
The main questions I hear students ask at restoration plantings are "Where are the
shovels?" and "Do we plant our tree here?"
Hmm. Could these projects be missing the "science" part of environmental science?
Often they are. After the planting, students may become more aware and solicitous
about the environment, but they don't necessarily understand it any better. Certainly
schools and students are extensively involved in restoration plantings. Plantings are
popular because they require little training, and they give students a chance to engage
the environment, do constructive work, and discover the world as it exists. Restoration
projects send a clear message: we, the people, made mistakes, have become aware of
them, and are taking steps to make corrections. And to top it off, the endproduct is
impressive.
But is this enough? Are our restoration plantings one-shot exercises, after which we go
back to the "real" world, or are they part of an integrated experience that teaches us
about the environments that we live in? Environmental education should be a journey,
one that captures our interest and imagination and leaves us with the tools to become
effective stewards of the place where we live.
Putting the science back in
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Instead of a one-shot field trip, let your restoration plantings become part of an ongoing
course of instruction. Organisms live in environments. Their biology, studied within the
context of their environment, provides a coherent structure for environmental education.
Most plantings don't include studying the site's biology or soils upfront, nor do they
provide for longitudinal monitoring after the planting is completed. Adding these
elements to your project means you must start your study months in advance of the
planting event, and continue for years afterward. A formidable challenge.
First, get your facts. You need to know about your plants and the soils they prefer.
Organize the work around simple, categorical questions like, "In which soils do our
plants grow best?" (A good scientific question should suggest a way to answer itself.
Does this one?)
Consult reference books to find out what soil properties your plants prefer, then go to
the restoration site and test the soils you find there. What do these tests tell you about
the suitability of site soils for your intended plants? If you have time, do experiments-
grow your plants in soil samples from the site and other soils you make up yourself.
After you have your facts about the plants and soils, make some predictions about the
plants' survivability, then do the planting. And you've completed the hard part. The rest
should be enjoyable and instructive.
You can make observations on plant vigor, diameter, height, root length, rates of
growth, or internodal lengths (nodes are the places where leaves attach, and internodes
are the spaces between nodes). Keep data records as part of a long-term monitoring
plan.
After you plant an assemblage, ask how it will organize itself over time. Investigate this
question by marking and mapping a study plot at your site. Identify each plant, or a
random selection of plants, and measure height, diameter, percent cover, or other
parameters that you think appropriate. What happens to the relative frequency of each
species? Do all plants grow at the same rate? same time of year? Does this raise further
questions? Just monitoring a planting for a few years will give you insights into how
environments come to be, and why some organisms live in one particular environment
and not others.
A restoration project gives students lots of chances to practice communication. Since
monitoring continues over many years, each class must figure out how to pass on what
they've learned and observed to future classes. Save posters, data sheets, and reports and
introduce them to next year's class as a valuable resource they can use to enhance their
own work. Ask them for feedback about what was useful and what else would have
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been helpful to communicate. Give the new class a sense of history—and something to
shoot for during their tenure.
Structure next year's work around the gaps left by this year's
work. This is how science is done, one piece of the puzzle at a
time. A good concept for all of us to learn, because life is lived
in the same way. It's not instantaneous, but the process develops
clear sets of connected facts.
And if you do your work right, at some future restoration
planting you just might be rewarded by hearing a student ask,
"What makes cottonwoods live here?" or "What's in the food
web of this dune grass?" or "How many of these wetland plants
will still be alive next year?"
Jim Martin conducts teacher-training workshops out of the Center for Science Education at Portland
State University. He can be reached at 503-725-4243; martinjl@psu4.pdx.edu.
Note: A longer version of this article appeared in the Spring 1999 issue of Clearing: Environmental
Education in the Pacific Nortlm'est. To subscribe to Clearing (4 issues SIS) contact E.L.C., 19600 S.
Molalla Ave., Oregon City, OR 97045; clearing@teleport.com.
Students at a tree-
planting on Brush Creek
in Santa Rosa, California.
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The
^jolunteer L /i lonitor
The National Newsletter of Volunteer Water Quality Monitoring
Volume 11, No. 1, Spring 1999
Note: This information is provided for reference
purposes only. Although the information provided
here was accurate and current when first created, it is
now outdated.
Assessing Restoration in Four Dimensions
by William R. Jordan III
When restorationists talk about assessing the quality of a restoration project, they're
usually thinking about the quality of the product. Accordingly, they ask questions about
the ecological accuracy or authenticity of the restored ecosystem—whether it looks and
behaves like the model system.
The value of the product is obvious. But a restoration project has other dimensions of
value, and they are generally less obvious—at least from a modern perspective. I have
come to think of these in terms of four dimensions of value—in addition to product,
these are process, experience, and performance.
Perhaps what we need then is a checklist of questions to use in appraising our efforts in
each dimension—something like this:
1. The product. Is the restored system ecologically accurate—that is, faithful to the
model system with respect to functions and dynamics as well as composition and
structure?
2. The process. Did we give everyone with an interest in the project a chance to
participate? Did we take advantage of all the opportunities to conduct research and gain
knowledge? Did we raise questions and test ideas about the ecosystem being restored,
about human relations with it, and about the restoration techniques used?
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3. The experience. For the participants, was the project an occasion for learning and for
emotional and spiritual bonding with the landscape? Did the work take advantage of
restoration as a way to explore various kinds of relationships with the landscape and to
exercise a wide range of human abilities and interests?
4. The performance. What did we do to enhance the value of the work as an expressive
act, or to develop it as a ritual for celebrating our relationship with the larger biotic
community? What information, ideas, values, and feelings did we convey to people who
were not directly involved in the project but who could benefit from it as an audience?
(Excerpted and adaptedfrom "Good Restoration" in Restoration and Management Notes 13:1,
Summer 1995.)
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The
L*lolunteer L it ionitor
The National Newsletter of Volunteer Water Quality Monitoring
Volume 11, No. 1, Spring 1999
Note: This information is provided for reference
purposes only. Although the information provided
here was accurate and current when first created, it is
now outdated.
Frogwatch USA
Frogwatch USA, recently launched by the U.S. Geological Survey, is a frog and toad
monitoring program designed for broad public participation. Participants choose a
wetland to monitor, then periodically visit it at dusk and listen for calling frogs and
toads. They can mail their results to the Frogwatch office or submit them directly to the
Website.
Frogwatch's research goals include tracking frog populations at discrete wetlands,
documenting when each species begins and ends its breeding season in different
regions, and gathering information on species distribution. In addition, Frogwatch gets
the public involved in amphibian research and helps people learn about ecosystems.
Frogwatch is separate from, but complementary to, the North American Amphibian
Monitoring Program (NAAMP). NAAMP is designed for trend analysis on a larger
scale and is more scientifically rigorous— for example, monitoring routes are assigned
according to a randomized design, and more training is required for volunteers. (For
more on NAAMP, see The Volunteer Monitor, Spring 1998, "Amphibian Decline:
Monitors Search for Answers.")
For more information, or to sign up as a volunteer, just go to the Frogwatch USA
Website at www.mp2-pwrc.usgs.gov/Frogwatch/, or contact Frogwatch Coordinator,
Patuxent Wildlife Research Center, USGS-BRD, 12100 Beech Forest Rd., Laurel, MD
20708-4038; 301-497-5819.
EPA Environmental Education Grants
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EPA's environmental education program annually awards grants to states, nonprofit
groups, and tribal organizations to support environmental education projects. A number
of volunteer monitoring programs have benefited from these grants in the past.
The application process is very competitive. Only 15 to 20 percent of applications are
funded. Your best chance is to apply for a grant of $5,000 or less. Grants under $25,000
are awarded by the EPA regional offices; grants for over $25,000 are awarded by the
EPA's Washington, DC, Environmental Education Office.
The deadline for grant applications is usually in mid-November. Check EPA's
environmental education Website (http://www.epa. gov/enviroed/grants .html) in
September for the exact date. The Website also provides tips for successful grant
applications. For more help, see EPA Region 5's environmental education grant page at
http://www.epa.gov/region5/enved/grants.htmL which offers grant writing tutorial
software and examples of past proposals that were funded. (If you don't have Web
access, call EPA's grants line at 202-260-8619; leave a message and you will be called
back.)
Great American Fish Count
Each year, during the first two weeks of July, volunteer divers and snorkelers take part
in a fish census known as the Great American Fish Count. The event began in 1992 with
just 50 divers. Last year, hundreds of divers participated in California, Florida, Georgia,
Texas, and the Pacific Northwest.
Before conducting a survey, volunteers are strongly encouraged to attend a free training
seminar to learn fish identification skills. (Seminars are offered in many locations
around the country; see the Website, below, for details.) For the Fish Count, divers use a
special datasheet to record all species they can positively identify within 100 meters of
where they enter the water.
Brian Huff, coordinator of the Fish Count, says that one of the project's major goals is to
encourage more divers to get involved in long-term, year-round monitoring. Ongoing
monitoring provides the most valuable data for tracking fish populations.
The Great American Fish Count is a joint project of the American Oceans Campaign,
Reef Environmental Education Foundation (REEF), and the National Marine Sanctuary
Program.
For more information, visit http://www.fishcount.org or call 800-8ocean0.
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