Here is an email I received recently from a local creek steward. It highlights the good work our community is doing to clean up our creeks as well as all of the work that still lies ahead  to return the water and habitat in the Santa Rosa creek system to health and vitality.

Hello Creek Stewards,

 With nearly 2 3/4 inches of rain in the last several days our creeks have started flowing again.  Not many leaves have fallen yet so the storm didn’t cause as much street flooding as a storm later in the fall might have.  I spent a little time on Santa Rosa Creek near Pierson Street this morning and didn’t see as much trash littering the shoreline or hanging in bushes as I expected.  I think that the work of the Youth Ecology Corps on creeks this summer and the 10 volunteer creek clean ups we’ve had this fall made a big difference.

 Six groups on Colgan, Spring, Matanzas and Spirit Creeks counted the trash they collected on tally cards and the results were turned in as part of the 3 week period of recording data for the California Coastal Commission.  Coastwalk led the Sonoma County effort and reports the following numbers from Sonoma County, with numbers from Santa Rosa in the second column:

No. of volunteers:              1,218                  182

Pounds of trash:               10, 564                 634

Pounds recyclables:           8,390                  236

Distance cleaned:             104.85 miles       3.5 miles

Quantified trash in the Santa Rosa area included:

211 plastic bags

28 balloons

59 pieces of clothing

45 toys

83 straws and stirrers

232 cups

884 food wrappers

125 plastic bottles

136 glass bottles

116 beverage cans

26 plastic six-pack holders

52 pieces of building material

3 tires

What can we make of these results?  Unfortunately, there is a lot of trash out there such as balloons, food wrappers, and plastic bags that can be mistaken as food by birds, fish, terrestrial, and marine animals.  The relatively low number of 26 plastic six pack holders might indicate that these are becoming less used as packaging to the relief of ducks, fish and other animals that can become entangled by them.  Food and beverage packaging is the most common form of trash.  There are 74 more tires somewhere in our creeks.  (This is calculated by having found 3 tires in 3.5 miles of creek and extrapolating that to 77 tires in the 90 miles of creeks within the City of Santa Rosa.  A similar calculation would estimate that 1,111 toys and 2,050 straws remain in our creeks.  Actually, I think these numbers would be high as the clean ups concentrated on creek areas with the most trash.)  Certainly, we can conclude that the volunteers made a difference. 

If you can, please join us for another volunteer creek clean up on Saturday October 24 on Steele Creek by Biella School.  Details are below.  And we’re certainly ready to support students, clubs, or businesses with a creek clean up as a community service project.  Sonoma Country Day School and Waldorf Summerfield School will keep the ball rolling with creek clean ups scheduled for later this month. 

A couple of animal sightings: I was surprised to hear from several people of a coyote wandering in Santa Rosa Creek not too far downstream from Stony Point Road.  I’ve heard of coyotes on the outskirts of town but not of them using the more urban stream corridors.  Sharp-eyed Mary Tressler spotted a river otter in Santa Rosa Creek by Gateway Park (the mosaic fish statue).  A Water Agency maintenance worker in the creek out by Willowside Road was startled when an inquisitive otter suddenly emerged between his hip boots.  A gaze of eight raccoons (time for the Funk and Wagnalls) raised havoc in garages as they used the storm drain pipes to move around a NE Santa Rosa neighborhood.  What have you seen?  It’s always fun to learn from the many eyes, ears, and voices on our creeks. 

Hands Across the County & Make a Difference Day

Saturday, Oct. 24, 2009,

9:00 a.m. to noon

Steele Creek clean up at Biella School – 2140 Jennings Avenue, Santa Rosa (west of Marlow Road)

Hands Across the County, a county-wide volunteer work day underwritten by Friedman's Home Improvement, mobilizes volunteer groups and individuals to make the community a cleaner, safer, brighter place while making friends and having fun too!  This will be the first time we’ve done a community creek clean up on Steele Creek.  Many parents and students will be working on the buildings and grounds.  This is a chance to clean up the neighborhood creek that drains the land as far away as Cleveland Avenue and enters Piner Creek a couple of blocks downstream of the school.  Tools and refreshments provided.  Rubber boots could come in handy. 

Insecta-palooza – explore the fantastic world of insects

Saturday, Oct. 24, 2009,

9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Darwin Hall, Sonoma State University

What’s the difference between a bug and an insect?  Do scorpions really glow in the dark?  Find out about the diversity of insects, spiders and other arthropods that live in our gardens, fields and forests.  Entomologists of all ages can explore the fascinating world of insects in a day long series of interactive displays, presentations and lectures and a chance to use the University’s top-notch microscopes.  Sounds like they will cover everything you didn’t know and didn’t want to know about insects.  The flyer for this event is available at

http://www.sonoma.edu/pubs/insectapalooza/images/insectapalooza.png

and details are online at:

http://www.sonoma.edu/pubs/insectapalooza.html