Battling Reed Canarygrass

Written by SOLVE Jesuit Volunteer Corps Northwest AmeriCorps member Nicole Poletto

Rex Putnam HS @ Boardman Wetlands on 4.15.2013

These coffee bags will help suppress the invasive Reed Canary grass

Mulch will help the plants retain water in the warm summer months

Rex Putnam High School came out once again to Boardman wetlands to continue to take care of all the plants that they planted!  In order to do this, they “coffee bagged” the native plants in the Reed Canarygrass area.  What does this mean, you might ask?  Well, Reed Canarygrass is a pesky invasive that can grow over 6 feet in the summertime.  It has a crazy seedbank in the soil, so the only way to get rid of it is with shade.  Staking coffee bags around the native plants helps shade out the grass and gives our native plants a chance to grow!  We coffee bagged 55 of our native plants! We also mulched 50 plants after they were bagged in order to help them retain water in the warm summer months when Rex Putnam isn’t there anymore to take care of their native plants!

That is not all that we did!  We also discussed litter in our environment and how litter in our watershed eventually ends up in the ocean.  A few dedicated students picked up litter around the neighborhood to keep it out of our waterways.

Thank you Rex Putnam for stewarding Boardman wetlands all year!  We will see you next month for our last outing to the wetlands!

Our coasts unite to make Boardman Wetlands a better place

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Written by SOLVE Jesuit Volunteer Corps Northwest member, Nicole Poletto

Rex Putnam HS with the University of Tampa @ Boardman Wetlands on 3.11.2013

Hailing from “the sunshine state”, the University of Tampa (YES! Tampa, Florida!) brought sunshine and good spirits as they came all the way from the opposite corner of the country to volunteer with SOLVE during their spring break.

They kicked off the week at Boardman wetlands to learn why SOLVE restores riparian zones and why our Green Teams do what they do!  Boardman Wetlands is plagued with invasive Reed Canary grass and Armenian Blackberry.  Due to the complex seed bank, the only way to get rid of Reed Canary grass is with shade.  Luckily, Rex Putnam students have been planting in the grass for the past two years and our natives are competing for space.  Armenian blackberry however, has a gnarly root structure that can be dug out!  Our spring breakers got to work removing invasive Blackberry to clear more area to plant our native trees and shrubs!  After a quick lunch break, the University of Tampa students planted 40 Ponderosa Pines, Cascara, and native roses!

Then it was time for a MULCH PARTY with Rex Putnam High School!  Terri and Katie from Oak Lodge Sanitary district also joined in the fun.  We had a whole mulch pile to move and our coasts united to get the job done!

Working together to make a difference at Boardman Wetlands!

We mulch our baby natives to help suppress weeds that might grow up around the plant, provide extra nutrients, and help the plant retain water (especially during the warm summer months when Rex Putnam isn’t out to take care of them!).  After we mulched all the plants in the Blackberry area, Putnam students began an assembly line to help our plants in the Reed Canary grass.  At the end of the day, we mulched 300 native plants!

As Dr. Seuss says,

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”

– The Lorax

We are so lucky to have so many people who care about the health of our watershed united at Boardman Wetlands to make Oregon a better place.  Thank you Rex Putnam, Oak Lodge Sanitary District, Clackamas County Water Environmental Services, and of course, the University of Tampa!

Our University of Tampa spring breakers!  Thank you for your commitment, great attitude, and hard work!

All Hail to Putnam!

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Written by SOLVE Jesuit Volunteer Corps Northwest member Nicole Poletto.  Photos by Jocelyn Mcintire.

Rex Putnam HS @ Boardman Wetlands on 2.25.2013

It was a beautiful sunny day out at Boardman…oh wait. Nevermind!  Unfortunately as soon as Putnam students came out to Boardman, the sun disappeared and it began to hail – great timing!  The students were still dedicated to learning about Ethnobotany (the study of the native and cultural uses of our native plants) for all the plants that we would be planting that day.  For example, they learned that Spirea one of our beloved native plants, is anti-inflammatory.  It is a main ingredient in Aspirin and is actually what the “Spir” in Asprin comes from!

Once the students were brimming with knowledge about our native plants, they couldn’t wait to begin planting!  Luckily the hail stopped and the sun began to peek through the clouds.  The students were planting plants at rapid speed and doing a great job!  Towards the end of class we began to dig out more Blackberry roots to clear even MORE area for us to plant!

What other school could power through the hail and STILL plant 71 plants AND dig a ton of Blackberry roots?  All Hail to Putnam! (no pun intended…)

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SOLVE’s Annual Women in Science day will be held at Glen Otto Park in Troutdale on March 23^rd from 9-1.  Girls – Are you interested in exploring a career in science? Come chat with mentors currently in the science field over breakfast!  In the afternoon we will be planting trees up the road at Beaver Creek!  Register online at : http://www.solv.org/get-involved/events/women-science-day.  See you there!

Putnam students are true ‘stake’holders of Boardman Wetlands!

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Written by Green Team Program Coordinator, Meghan Ballard

Rex Putnam HS @ Boardman Wetlands on 12.3.2012

Over 30 Putnam students and 4 board members and staff from the Oak Lodge Sanitary District (who fund this project) joined us earlier this week to once again help out at Boardman Wetlands.  On the schedule for the day – installing ‘magic sticks’.  What in the world are magic sticks you ask?  Well, several species of native plants have the incredible super power ability to grow into a brand new plant just from a branch staked into the ground!

This technique of installing live stakes is a form of bioengineering.  Bioengineering is the use of biological, ecological and mechanical concepts to control streambank erosion – US Army Corps of Engineers

After learning all about bioengineering techniques and how to make live stakes, students got to work quickly cutting up branches of Pacific Willow and Scouler’s Willow.  The willow branches were harvested by SOLVE staff from a nearby wetland about a mile south of Boardman Wetlands so genetic stock from the area was used.  Students first cut off any smaller side branches and leaves since we want all the plant’s resources going into making roots this spring and not to worry about producing leaves.  We cut 3 foot long stakes with a flat cut on top and a 90 degree angle cut on the bottom so we can mallet them easily into the soil.

Live Staking on a stream bank

Student Students learned that installing live stakes can not only control erosion but also control the super invasive Reed Canary Grass at Boardman Wetlands.  Scientists from the University of Washington have been studying the control of Reed Canary grass with densely planted willow stakes:

Conclusions:  Reed canarygrass growth was significantly reduced by willows grown from stakes. Willows at the 0.60 m planting density significantly diminished reed canarygrass biomass after the first growing season and willows at the 0.60 and 0.91 m planting densities significantly diminished reed canarygrass biomass after the second growing season. Based on our results, we conclude that live staking of willows at spacings of 0.60 m or 0.91 m can be an effective method for managing reed canary- grass in a wetland setting. - Kim, Ewing, & Giblin; Controlling Phalaris arundinacea (reed canarygrass) with live willow stakes: A density-dependent response

We made sure to install the willow cuttings really densely (2 feet apart).  The willow will begin to sprout as early as this spring and over time begin to create shade – Reed Canary grass’ one enemy!  Students got to check out the willow stakes that were installed by Putnam students last year.  Below you can see just how much a willow grew in one year!

Our Willow stakes from last year did awesome! This is how much our stakes grew in only a year, and what the stakes we are installing now will soon look like!

Students also planted 14 native Ninebark and Nootka rose plants.  Thanks Rex Putnam and Oak Lodge Sanitary District!

Our dedicated stewards of Rex Putnam HS!

Muddy business

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Written by SOLVE Jesuit Volunteer Corps Northwest Member Nicole Poletto

Rex Putnam High School @ Boardman Wetlands on 11.9.12

It was the last class of the day on a Friday afternoon.  What better way to get the weekend started than with some planting with SOLVE?  Terry from Oak Lodge Sanitary District was also there to support our planting efforts on the beautiful sunny day.

A few students came running to Boardman, eager to get started on the afternoon’s activities.  They were shocked to see a new route available to get to their restoration area. A wall of Blackberry that had once blocked their path had been destroyed!  After a lesson on learning Plant Identification, the students trampled over the Blackberry brambles to begin planting in the wetland.

Soon, Douglas Spirea, Black Twinberry, and Pacific Willow were popping up throughout the sea of Reed Canary Grass.  Douglas Spirea, referred to as Cotton candy by Rex Putnam students, is a native that prefers the wetland environment.  That is because in full bloom, Spirea has a cotton candy-like flower that grows from its terminal bud.

Douglas Spirea, “Cotton candy” plant           Photo: woodbrooknativeplantnursery.com

At the end of the day, the mud that coated our gloves (and some faces) was well worth it.  We planted 28 plants that would grow tall and shade out our Reed Canary grass enemy.  Awesome job Rex Putnam!

Rex Putnam vs. Reed Canary grass

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Written by SOLVE Jesuit Volunteer Corps Northwest Member Nicole Poletto

On a beautiful, sunny Monday afternoon Rex Putnam High School students came out to Boardman creek for the first time.  This is the second year of restoration for Boardman wetlands, a site overrun by Reed Canary grass.  Reed Canary grass is very difficult to get rid of due to its root structure and seeds that remain viable for 40 years.  Thus the only way to get rid of Reed Canary is with shade!  Yet, the native plants planted last year were being buried by the dying grass as it began to lay down.

Rex Putnam, armed with grass shears, came to the rescue.  They cut down and ripped out the grass in a radius around the natives.  As more and more grass was cut, more natives were found buried underneath the grass.   Despite the heat, about 100 natives were saved in less than an hour.  Awesome job Rex Putnam!

Rex Putnam Visits Boardman One Last Time

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Written by SOLVE Jesuit Volunteer Corps Northwest Member, Charlie

Last week was this year’s Rex Putnam Green Team’s last visit out to their site at Boardman Creek. During this final time out at the creek, students took a much deserved break from all of the hard work they have done in order to take some time to observe the results of their labors out at the Boardman Wetlands.

When we first arrived at the site, it was nearly indistinguishable from the last time we were there only a few weeks ago. It seems that this warmer weather and longer days have really flipped the “grow!” switch in the blackberry and reed canary grass. The path we had cut through the blackberry on the margin of the site back in October is starting to grow closed, and the reed canary grass among the plants we had planted is already 6-7 feet high and flowering! It suddenly became obvious to everyone why we had put so much effort into placing down coffee bags around the plants to prevent the grass from growing right next to our young natives and shading them out. Despite all of the nasty invasives that are thriving at the site, also thriving are the willow stakes we planted in the ground last winter. Nearly every stake is leafing out and well on its way to becoming a large tree. We all look forward to the day when these trees will shade the banks of Boardman Creek, keeping the reed canary grass at bay with its only enemy: shade.

After touring the site, we then walked around the neighborhood surrounding Rex Putnam school and Boardman Creek and distributed newsletters of articles, poems, and art students had created about their work at Boardman Creek this year. Residents were interested to hear about what all of these high school students were doing in their backyards and were very excited about the positive impact this green team has been doing in their community.

This year’s Rex Putnam High School SOLVE Green Team has a lot to be proud of, they did a tremendous amount of work at this very impacted site. However if this final visit taught us one thing, it’s that there is still much work to be done. We at SOLVE have had a wonderful first year working with Rex Putnam at Boardman Creek and we look forward to working again with you next year!

Thank you Oak Lodge Sanitary District for funding this project!

East side green teamers reflect on their year of service-learning…

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Written by Meghan Ballard, Green Team Program Coordinator.

Students from SOLVE’s Green Teams on the East Side of the Willamette River joined together last week to share their experiences and the lessons they have learned over the past year.  Hosted at Clackamas High School, students were able to hear about each others’ research and time spent at the creek.

Matthew Collins, Education Director for Friends of Tryon Creek, joined us to talk about the importance of volunteering and how it has personally impacted his life and career choices.    Check out all of the different ways you can volunteer with Friends of Tryon Creek!

Ashley, Lindsey, Joel and Tanner from Gladstone High School started off the student presentations with information about invasive species at Rinearson Creek.  Sam and Katie joined us to represent West Linn High School and their work with stream bioengineering at Abernethy Creek. Portland Lutheran School students Lydia, Rachel, Abi and Arianna
shared their experience with the fun, slimy and smelly salmon toss on the Sandy River. Alexis, Ben, Jesse and Ryan presented on behalf of Clackamas High School and they shared some very interesting findings about their macroinvertebrate surveys of Mount Scott and Rock Creeks.  Fernanda, Kennedy, and Jake from Rex Putnam High School put together a documentary of their work this year at Boardman Wetlands. And students from the Sabin-Schellenberg Technical School gave their perspective on several tools they’ve used this year on invasive removal at Rock Creek.

Charlie(SOLVE) also introduced something new this year, the Clackamas Student Stewardship Award!  This award recognizes a special student or group of students who go above and beyond our usual tasks and contribute something extraordinary to SOLVE and the overall work we do as a Green Team program.  This year’s award was given to three outstanding art students, Chanel Karbonski, Kristy Younglove, & Ashley-Jean Gonzalez who have done AMAZING work transforming litter pulled out of Phillips Creek into beautiful and educational artwork, including the Tom McCall portrait below!

THANK YOU to all of the stellar students and teachers we have had the honor and privilege of working with this year!  It has been one of our most successful Green Team years ever and we are so glad you all were able to share it with us.

Thank you to the following sponsors, partners and friends who attended the summit and for supporting our work:

• Clackamas County Water Environment Services
• Clackamas Soil and Water Conservation District
• Oak Lodge Sanitary District
• Patrick Edwards, Portland State University
• Johnson Creek Watershed Council
• Friends of Trees
• Clackamas River Basin Council
• Friends of Tryon Creek

Amazing litter art!

Trash Talk at Boardman Wetland

All the litter we found in a short stretch of Boardman Creek

Two classes of students from Rex Putnam joined us at Boardman Creek this week.  First students got a lesson from Gina and Charlie(SOLVE) on litter in our environment and how it can travel to the Pacific Ocean.  Litter that is dropped nearby or blown out of overflowing trash cans washes into Boardman Creek during rain events and can be a real problem for wildlife that call the creek home.

From Change.org:

As we all know, every discarded item, no matter the size, must end up somewhere. Often litter ends up in waterways. With assistance from ditches, sewer systems, rivers and other bodies of water, litter can easily traverse across thousands of miles to wash up on your local beach.

Here are the top five litter items found and how they harm wildlife:

#5 Plastic beverage bottles (8.6 percent)
Plastic is lightweight and durable, making it an ideal choice for manufacturing. Put it in water and decomposition time slows down, meaning plastic will be around for a long time — about 450  years — potentially harming marine wildlife. BPA, a chemical compound in plastic bottles that’s linked to health problems in humans, can cause reproductive disorders in shellfish and other species.

#4 Caps and lids (8.9 percent)
Caps and lids are not too large for a number of wildlife species to eat. Birds, like albatross in Hawaii, mistake them for eggs or squid and take them back to the nest.

#3 Food wrappers/containers (9.2 percent)
Both paper and plastic are used in food packaging. They can be mistaken for food and any traces of food on the packaging will attract hungry animals. Choking or blockages can lead to death.

#2 Plastic Bags (11 percent)
Plastic bags may not seem appetizing, but a sea turtle can mistake them for jellyfish. Blockages can occur, causing the turtle to starve to death if they don’t choke first. Other possibilities include animals becoming trapped inside a bag and suffocating or drowning to death.

#1 Cigarettes/cigarette filters (21 percent)
As with land litter, cigarettes/cigarette filters are the most prevalent litter type in water. Not only does wildlife mistakenly eat discarded cigarette parts, they may also be fed to offspring. No nutritional value is obtained from cigarettes, yet wildlife feel full after ingestion. Cigarettes are also highly toxic — as Chris Santiago wrote on the Environment blog, the chemicals in one filtered cigarette butt can kill half the fish living in a one liter container of water.

Students found many of the above trash items and in addition pulled out three tires, many parts to a car engine, a cd player and signs.  Students won’t stop there!  Instead of putting all this trash into a landfill, students are going to clean it up a bit and create educational art pieces out of all they found.  In addition, students helped finish up mulching our newly planted natives to protect them from the hot summer months!

Thank you Rex Putnam!

Thank you Oak Lodge Sanitary District for funding this project!

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Rex Putnam 1, Reed Canary Grass 0

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Two classrooms of students from Rex Putnam High a joined us once again this week at Boardman Wetland.  Katie and Terry from the Oak Lodge Sanitary District (funder of the Boardman Wetland Enhancement project) joined us to help out as well!  Our natives which were planted a few weeks ago were showing signs of spring with new buds!  Also, the start of spring marks the start of Reed Canary Grass season – we saw many new green sprouts of the invasive grass at the wetland.

The grass will quickly outcompete our baby natives if we didn’t take action!

From Washington State Department of Ecology:

Reed canarygrass forms dense, highly productive single species stands that pose a major threat to many wetland ecosystems. The species grows so vigorously that it is able to inhibit and eliminate competing species. In addition, areas that have existed as reed canarygrass monocultures for extended periods may have seed banks that are devoid of native species. Unlike native wetland vegetation, dense stands of reed canarygrass have little value for wildlife. Few species eat the grass, and the stems grow too densely to provide adequate cover for small mammals and waterfowl.

Students worked in pairs to stake coffee bags donated to SOLVE by Coffee Bean International, around native plants to impede weed growth; the burlap sacks will provide an area around the plant that is relatively Reed Canary grass free and thus, allows the plant to grow without its usual competitor.  The bags and the stakes that we use will biodegrade in a few years, so nothing is left behind.

Students showed great teamwork while hauling 5 gallon buckets of mulch over a fence to further protect the plants.  The mulch is made up of doug fir and will help to impede weed growth, add nutrients into the soil, and help keep the roots moist during dry summer month.  The students worked hard to coffee bag and mulch more than 150 plants.

Thank you students for all your hard work!

Thank you to Oak Lodge Sanitary District for funding this project and getting muddy with us!