Streaming Media
Presentation Abstract
Stillwaters Environmental Center spearheaded the Carpenter Creek Estuary Restoration project, which replaced two undersized culverts in a pocket estuary in Kingston, WA with large-span bridges in 2012 and 2018. This restored natural tidal and creek flows and sediment transport, and increased access for salmonids to the creek and estuary. To establish a pre-restoration baseline and involve the community, Stillwaters coordinated citizen science monitoring of water quality and ecological conditions in the estuary, salt marsh, and creek in 2005 and have continued this monitoring during the recovery. Since 2013, we have also hosted 31 undergraduate and graduate interns from local colleges whose projects have expanded the scope of our work. Some of our most popular projects for volunteers and interns alike have involved monitoring salt marsh plants to document changes in the distribution of both natives and invasives, and in the survival of Sitka spruce that dominate the marsh edge. Volunteers are eager to use the training we provide in salt marsh vegetation identification, and point-intercept sampling methods increased volunteers’ confidence in their abilities and in the reliability of data collected by multiple observers. A larger number of community members were engaged in a tree-planting drive to support a study of the survival and growth of Sitka spruce seedlings planted along the marsh-forest interface. Interns have been involved in all aspects of these projects, such as learning field methods and training volunteers, gathering supplementary data on pore water salinity, and in summarizing the data from multiple studies on native vegetation and reed canary grass control. Lessons learned so far in terms of both post-restoration recovery of the salt marsh and the successes and pitfalls of collaborations between citizen scientists and college interns will be discussed.
Session Title
Poster Session 4: People Working Together to Protect the Salish Sea
Conference Track
SSE14: Posters
Conference Name
Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference (2022 : Online)
Document Type
Event
SSEC Identifier
SSE-posters-356
Start Date
27-4-2022 4:30 PM
End Date
27-4-2022 5:00 PM
Type of Presentation
Poster
Genre/Form
conference proceedings; presentations (communicative events); posters
Subjects – Topical (LCSH)
Salt marsh plants--Effect of salt on--Washington (State)--Kingston; Salt marsh plants--Monitoring--Washington (State)--Kingston; Salt marsh plants--Habitat--Conservation--Washington (State)--Kingston; Salt marsh restoration--Washington (State)--Kingston; Culverts--Washington (State)--Kingston
Rights
Copying of this document in whole or in part is allowable only for scholarly purposes. It is understood, however, that any copying or publication of this document for commercial purposes, or for financial gain, shall not be allowed without the author's written permission.
Type
Text
Language
English
Format
application/pdf
Included in
Fresh Water Studies Commons, Marine Biology Commons, Natural Resources and Conservation Commons
Monitoring vegetation response to culvert removals in a salt marsh: education for college interns, citizen scientists and the local community.
Stillwaters Environmental Center spearheaded the Carpenter Creek Estuary Restoration project, which replaced two undersized culverts in a pocket estuary in Kingston, WA with large-span bridges in 2012 and 2018. This restored natural tidal and creek flows and sediment transport, and increased access for salmonids to the creek and estuary. To establish a pre-restoration baseline and involve the community, Stillwaters coordinated citizen science monitoring of water quality and ecological conditions in the estuary, salt marsh, and creek in 2005 and have continued this monitoring during the recovery. Since 2013, we have also hosted 31 undergraduate and graduate interns from local colleges whose projects have expanded the scope of our work. Some of our most popular projects for volunteers and interns alike have involved monitoring salt marsh plants to document changes in the distribution of both natives and invasives, and in the survival of Sitka spruce that dominate the marsh edge. Volunteers are eager to use the training we provide in salt marsh vegetation identification, and point-intercept sampling methods increased volunteers’ confidence in their abilities and in the reliability of data collected by multiple observers. A larger number of community members were engaged in a tree-planting drive to support a study of the survival and growth of Sitka spruce seedlings planted along the marsh-forest interface. Interns have been involved in all aspects of these projects, such as learning field methods and training volunteers, gathering supplementary data on pore water salinity, and in summarizing the data from multiple studies on native vegetation and reed canary grass control. Lessons learned so far in terms of both post-restoration recovery of the salt marsh and the successes and pitfalls of collaborations between citizen scientists and college interns will be discussed.
