Our
Activities
Annual
Creek
Cleanup
Arundo
Removal
Fish
Sampling
How to
Volunteer
Creeks
Master Plan
Creek History
Maps
Wildlife in
the Creeks
Otters and Beavers
Creek Science
Water
Quality
Bioassessment
BMI
Lifestyles
Creek
Structure
Native Walnuts
About FOC
About Us
Join Us/Donate
Contact
Us
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Restoration Planting Day January 4, 2020 9:30-12:00
Come
help us replace ugly weeds with wildlife-friendly native plants!
We'll be planting plugs (seedlings) of three native species
selected for their ability to hold a creek bank together at a prominent
site on Broadway in downtown Walnut Creek. For more details and
to sign up, click here.
Creek Restoration
Workdays
After we have spent the summer removing arundo, we spend the winter planting appropriate native creek plants in its place.
Join us for some rewarding work, camaraderie, and usually a
brief talk about an aspect of creek ecology.
No
experience is required -- just a desire to make the creek a better
place
for both humans and wildlife. For more
information about workdays
To sign up, contact
us.
Photos
of past restoration days
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Upcoming
Events
Next Restoration event: Sat Jan 4, 9:30am -see above More restoration: Jan Feb Mar - dates TBD Annual Creek Cleanup:
Sat May 9, 2020, 8:45am
To sign
up for an event, contact
us.
******************************************** The Second Year of Arundo
As
members of the Walnut Creek Watershed Council, we joined the
watershed-wide focus on arundo in 2018. Arundo (a relative of
bamboo) is the single worst weed in California creeks, and we have a
lot of it in certain areas of our watershed. We are taking a
three-pronged approach:
- mapping all the arundo in our watershed
- educating the public, especially landowners along creeks, about arundo and why they should remove it
- continuing to remove arundo ourselves and restoring the creek with native plants that will stabilize the banks and be beneficial to wildlife
In
2019 we have led four arundo removal events and established a
relationship with landowners on Pine Creek. In February 2020 we
hope to invite people to a restoration workshop because many landowners
are willing to do it themselves once they know how.
Friends of the Creeks participated in filming a video about arundo which you can see here.
Other Activities Annual Creek Cleanup
In
May we held the 30th Annual Downtown Creek Cleanup. While the
volune was about the same as other recent years, there was a lot more
trash and much less vegetation. However, there were almost no plastic
bags and little fast food trash, so our local ordinances banning them
are effective.
Community Service Day (October)
We
had three projects for CSD: Arundo removal in Civic Park, a
cleanup on Pine Creek, and a new idea -- a family creek cleanup in
Heather Farm Park centered on kids age 6-10.
Family Creek Cleanup (November)
The
Heather Farm family creek cleanup was such a success that we did
another one on Pine Creek with a group of parents and kids age 5-8 from
Parkmead School.
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Planting plugs from a tray
Cutting arundo on Community Serviee Day in October
Cutting and painting arundo during the removal process - June
Volunteers
removing a large stand of arundo in Civic Park in April.
Shopping carts were a very popular item at the 2019 cleanup. Crew 7 collected three of them plus a baby stroller.
Parkmead kids cleanup on Pine Creek. They were very thorough and picked up every bit of trash we saw.
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