Okay, okay, okay… What do you get when you cross 6 West Linn High School Environmental Science Classes, an eroding creek bank, and 3 beautifully sunny days?
Well looking back at the last 3 days, apparently the answer is: a feat of bioengineering and the beginnings of a restored riparian zone. We warned you that this wasn’t funny [see post title] despite the fact that one tends not to be so dry when working around streams… Dang it! It appears that hanging out with the punsters at West Linn High School does rub off on you.
Wordplay aside, the students at West Linn got a ton of work done in the last three days. At this site West Linn went through all the steps of stabilizing an eroding bank with bioengineering. Before the students arrived, an earth mover had sloped the streambank to be a gradual slope as opposed to a steep cliff of dirt, but in order to prevent further erosion, a lot of work needed to be done with bioengineering techniques, to stabilize the bank in the long-term. On the first day students arrived, we placed fascine bundles of willow and dogwood in trenches, anchored them down and buried them. These will grow into new trees and will create a nice matrix of roots that will hold in the soil and prevent sediment from washing into the stream. On the second day, students spread out straw, rolled out a carpet of natural fiber fabric, and staked it down. This will keep soil from washing in the stream in the short-term as we wait for those fascines bundles to take root and grow. On the final day, students planted and staked over 300 trees and shrubs to provide a nice diverse community of plants for the riparian zone. For more specifics and better pictures on how this is accomplished check out this previous posting here.
West Linn did a wonderful job, and we look forward to having them back at Abernethy!