Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Near Shore Clean up at Discovery Bay


We spent yesterday and today working on WDFW land in Discovery Bay.  This land is referred to by the salmon coaltion as the Maynard property.  Maynard was a former landowner.  Many restoration projects have occurred in this area in the last 15 years.  Salmon Creek and Snow Creek both empty into the bay here.  We are here taking care of small loose ends as part of the next large project. The next large project is the removal of several portions of the old railroad grade which constricts the tidal prism.  This creates habitat that is less than ideal for endangered summer chum because it takes away the shallows.  These shallow areas are shelter and forage locations for juvenile salmonids. You can read more details about this project here Discovery Bay railroad grade removal details






The crew's job was to salvage sheet metal roofing from an old mill building as well as remove scotch broom and Ivy from several different key locations.

 
 
These roof panels will later be repurposed for interpretive sign kiosks.
The crew pulled and piled a very large amount of ivy and scotch broom as well.  The crew hand pulled these plantrs in areas that the machines will not be accessing during the construction phase of the railroad grade removal.

Here is Kori standing next one of the crew's piles of ivy that we pulled behind the mill building.

No that is not a stick.  That is one of the mature ivy vines thast Robbie pulled.

We found some vandalism at a nearby older site while we were in the area.  Someone had pulled several mature willow trees out.  Fortunately, willow are quite hardy.  We replanted them and pulled all the scotch broom in this area as well.

Above you see rick standing in a field of scotch broom.
Here you can see there is significantly less scotch broom.  We enjoyed the list of odd jobs we got on this 2 day stint.  We'll check in again soon.
Oh, we also may have a new record for ivy diameter.  We're talkin old growth here.

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