While April is celebrated in the environmentalist community with a flood of service opportunities dedicated to Earth Day, the City of Oakley decided to jumpstart their responsibility to the local environment through a series of beautification, tree planting, and cleanup events held on Saturday, April 12th. With one of the five projects focused on cleaning up Marsh Creek, the Oakley Day of Service gave Earth Team interns from Pittsburg High School and Antioch High School the chance to connect watershed concepts that they learned in meetings with environmental action that they could practice in the field.
Earlier, in the second week of April, these intern teams were fortunate enough to have two local experts join their weekly meetings on each respective campus as guest lecturers speaking on the broad topics of creek biogeography, native versus non-native versus invasive species, and the impact of climate change on watersheds. Interns were first informed of the specific watersheds they lived in before being introduced to Marsh Creek watershed, where they knew the upcoming field event would be held. Interns also became aware of the community organizations running these events and the commitment they have to engaging volunteers in creek restoration, cleanups, and other stewardship opportunities. While the Contra Costa Resource Conservation District (CCRCD) is undoubtedly one of these prominent groups, the Friends of Marsh Creek Watershed (FoMCW) and Marsh Creek Watershed Council (MCWC) were also spotlighted within the more specific context of the upper and lower Marsh Creek watersheds which run adjacent to the watersheds where most of our interns from Antioch and Pittsburg live.
Interns also benefited from a wealth of knowledge shared regarding what salmonids are, how fish ladders help them spawn, the concerns of poaching and overfishing, and how conservation efforts hope to rebuild their populations. As interns absorbed all this information, they were able to observe real samples of salmonid fish eggs up close and hold miniature models that depict each stage of salmonid spawning.
With this precursor to the Oakley Day of Service, Earth Team interns were well informed and able to help with the most critical aspect of the Marsh Creek cleanup: wading into the water themselves to retrieve litter that had fallen in from the trails above each bank. Careful not to trample native plant species or disturb the observed wildlife, such as turtles basking in the sun or the fish swimming around them, interns proceeded to collect all types of trash. Some notable finds include many plastic Nerf darts, the electrical wiring and frame to an old TV, and four waterlogged tires, along with many food wrappers, styrofoam containers, and bottles and cans. Other interns intently walked the trails bordering each side of the creek, shouting out when they spotted litter below them at creek level and filling their own buckets with trash too.
When the official cleanup event concluded, Earth Team regrouped and headed over to the Marsh Creek fish ladder with guides from CCRCD and FoMCW. There, interns had the opportunity to explore the mechanisms of a fish ladder and see exactly how it helps salmonid species overcome the obstacles that would otherwise prevent them from returning to their natural spawning grounds. The guides encouraged interns to draw connections between the information they had just learned from the guest lecturers to their real field experience. By conducting this explicit form of outdoor education, Earth Team hopes to establish stronger relationships between classroom curriculum and weekend service events in order to make our internship program a foundation that interns can build on in the future as environmental stewards.
