By Paula Urtecho There’s just something about trees. They draw people in. When staff members of The Watershed Project are out in the North Richmond community planting trees or caring for trees or even just looking at trees, invariably people come around to see what we are doing. They start to ask questions about the trees like, what kind of trees are these, why are they being planted and, more often than one would think, they ask, “Can I help?” North Richmond is a residential community surrounded by industry. The Chevron refinery looms over the western edge of the area …
Ebb & Flow
The Newsletter of The Watershed Project
Back to School resources for protecting your watershed
By The Watershed Project staff Kick off the new school year by establishing some new watershed-friendly habits. Here are some activities to share with your children, students, friends, and neighbors for appreciating and protecting our watersheds. Watersheds are quite complicated systems, especially urban watersheds, where the movement of water through natural features of the landscape such as creeks, rivers, marshes, and bays is interrupted by buildings, streets, bridges, levees, and storm drains. This video provides an excellent brief overview of how a watershed functions. The Watershed …
The Most Resilient Dogs Howling Near You: Coyotes
By Dan Kirk At the time the famous Looney Tunes cartoon show, Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner, was first being broadcast on American television in mid 20th century, the Bureau of Biological Survey killed off about 6.5 million coyotes (Canas latrans) in the American West. Without knowing what coyotes preyed on (rodents, rabbits, fruits and vegetables), the federal government aimed to protect growing livestock farms from the innocent “predator”, and for about 10 years the wild canine population kept shrinking. Turns out, as depicted in Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner, coyotes are very …
Sea Change: Taking on Plastic
By Sharon Gibbons As we approach International Coastal Cleanup Day on September 21, our local communities of the Bay Area are increasingly mindful of the need for a sea change in our daily consumption of plastics. Merriam-Webster defines “sea change” as “a marked change: a transformation.” As we prepare to clean up our community shoreline parks and celebrate their natural beauty, we need to take a hard look at our consumer habits that are contributing to an environmental crisis. As consumers and community members, we need to make a sea change replacing single use plastics with green …
Rollingwood Neighbors Rally in Hopes of Reduced Flooding
By Anne Bremer We all live in a watershed. When it rains, water flows downward from hills and mountains, through forests and streets, to creeks, rivers, bays and oceans. But what happens when a watershed doesn’t function in the way it should? This is the situation faced by residents in the Rollingwood neighborhood, which borders Rheem Creek just upstream of Contra Costa College. For over 20 years, this community has suffered from flooding related to creek overflows. The Rollingwood reach of Rheem Creek has long been neglected and is choked with invasive vegetation, leading to sediment build …
Getting past grass: How to replace your lawn in 3 months
By Paula White and Paula Urtecho I grew up in West Virginia with a big yard and a lawn that required a riding lawn mower to maintain. Lawns make sense in many parts of the country where there is plenty of rain year round, but not so much here in the Bay Area where water bills can soar from watering the lawn during our long dry season. A great alternative to a boring, homogenous lawn is a native plant garden. Native plant gardens are far more interesting to look at than a lawn, (particularly a brown, weed-infested one), and they attract beneficial insects such as bees and butterflies - a plus. …
What’s in Your Watershed: California and Steller Sea Lions
By Nikki Muench The California Sea Lion is an iconic species along the West Coast, from Vancouver Island, B.C. down to Baja California in Mexico, and famously spotted at Pier 39 in San Francisco and the Monterey Coast Guard jetty in Monterey Bay. The often chocolatey brown California sea lions are one of several pinnipeds (aquatic carnivorous mammals, including seals, sea lions, and walruses) that can be found in the San Francisco Bay Area, so here are three easy ways to distinguish a sea lion from a seal when you’re at the coast or along the bay shoreline. Ears. Sea lions have external …
From Rails to Swales: Managing Stormwater Naturally on the Richmond Greenway
By Kat Sawyer Did you know that the Richmond Greenway is part of the Rails-to-Trails network, where old railway land is converted to greenspace across the country? What was once a right-of-way for the Santa Fe Railroad is now a pedestrian and bike trail for Richmond residents. Local nonprofits have adopted parts of the Richmond Greenway to create gardens and parks that provide an urban oasis where people can walk and ride bikes through the city apart from busy streets. The Watershed Project has played a role in the transformation of the greenway over the years creating swales and rain …