AGENDA ITEM #5.A Acterra Progress Report Provided by the Open Space Committee Acterra Action for a Healthy Planet 3921 East Bayshore Road Palo Alto ca 94303-4303 tel 650.962.9876 fax 650.962.8234 www.acterra.org info@acterra.org Project Promotion and Outreach Acterra Progress Report to the Town of Los Altos Hills Quarter 3: October- December 2015 We have been coordinating with the following schools and corporate groups to set up volunteer workdays and educational events to take place next quarter: Sacred Heart Preparatory (confirmed), Nueva School (probable), Girls Middle School (probable), Bullis Charter School (confirmed), AeroFS (confirmed), VMware (probable). We continue to provide monthly email blasts to our LAH email list to highlight LAH events and volunteer opportunities. Along with the email blasts, LAH events continue to be included in Acterra s agency- wide EcoHappenings e- newsletter and on our website. This quarter the Bioengineering at Byrne Willow Workday was featured in EcoHappenings. Cub Scout Troop 76 at Byrne Preserve Site Assessment and Planning The Open Space Committee organized a site visit with conservation grazing experts Dr. Larry Ford and Pete Van Hoorn. Members from the OSC, Acterra Stewardship, and Westwind Barn worked together to provide information on the historical and current land use of Byrne Preserve. Both Kristen Williams and Paul Heiple attended the morning portion of the meeting. In addition, Paul Heiple joined Larry Ford and Pete Van Hoorn in the afternoon for a field portion to assist with technical questions. We look forward to receiving Dr. Ford s report. Acterra Stewardship Assistant Director, Junko Bryant, came to Byrne Preserve to help assess and identify areas within the drainage that would respond positively to bioengingeering. Together we chose two areas based on accessibility for volunteers, proximity to a water source, height of the water table, and likelihood of erosion. Fall photomonitoring was conducted at fixed locations so that we can track our restoration progress over time. We will continue to monitor on a quarterly basis to show changes through the seasons.
Community Engagement and Education This quarter Acterra hosted a total of 5 workdays and 3 educational events at Byrne Preserve. Acterra staff Kristen Williams and Paul Heiple held 3 Byrne Brigade sessions on Monday mornings this fall. We primarily focused on removal of purple starthistle rosettes along the grassland trails. One of our Byrne Brigade workdays was dedicated to bioengingeering with willows in the grassland drainage areas Junko helped identify. We installed both willow fascines and willow stakes using locally sourced willow most of which was harvested within Byrne Preserve. In addition to the 3 community workdays we also held 2 private workdays. National Charities League Orchard Glen Chapter and Cub Scout Troop 76 both came to Byrne for service days to remove teasel and purple starthistle, and plant native plants. In December, we completed 3 field trips with Bullis Charter School fourth grade classes. Acterra Stewardship staff Kristen Williams, Stacey Dixon, and Claire Elliott led the students on an interpretive hike through Byrne Preserve. The field trip focus was native biodiversity and watershed health. In addition to the hike students rotated through a series of stations where they participated in hands on activities such as planting native creeping wild rye, and a water quality monitoring station where students tested the turbidity of the water in the Moody Creek tributary. A fourth class will visit Byrne Preserve in January and all four classrooms will come back to Byrne Preserve in April for a follow up visit. See the chart below for year- to- date progress on project deliverables. We have already surpassed our annual target for number of workdays, educational events, and educational event attendees. We are behind on the amount of volunteers served and volunteer hours, but anticipate increased volunteer participation in the upcoming months based on the interest we have from school and corporate groups. Deliverable YTD Progress (May- December) Annual Target % Annual Target Reached Workdays 26 24 108% Volunteers 180 350 52% Volunteer Hours 530 1,000 53% Educational Events 11 10 110% Ed. Event Attendees 238 100 238%
Native Plant Installation and Maintenance We are now in the midst of Acterra Stewardship s planting season which runs from November through February. We plant during the winter months to take advantage of the rains and cool weather and minimize the amount of hand- watering we need to do. This year we are focusing our revegetation efforts along the Moody Creek tributary within the Byrne Preserve grassland. We are expanding upon a very successful native plant installation from Year 1. The species diversity we are planting this year has characteristics that are ideal for this zone and many of these species are already flourishing in this area or similar areas. Our plant list includes rhizomatous species which will help combat erosion and increase groundwater recharge, and all species are great habitat plants for local insects, birds, and mammals. See below for the complete species list: Botanical Name Common Name Quantity Artemisia douglasii Mugwort 49 Baccharis glutinosa Marsh Baccharis 49 Scrophularia californica Beeplant 32 Stachys rigida Hedgenettle 32 Rosa californica California Rose 16 Ribes aureum Golden Currant 5 Asclepias fascicularis Narrowleaf Milkweed 32 Elymus triticoides Creeping Wild Rye 196 Juncus patens Common Rush 16 Symphoricarpos albus Snowberry 8 Stipa pulcra Purple Needle Grass 32 Mimulus cardinalis Scarlet Monkeyflower 16 Helenium ssp. Sneezeweed 16 Total 499
Invasive Plant Management This quarter volunteers focused on removal of Fuller s teasel, purple starthistle, and bull thistle which are all biennial species ideal for removal in fall. Please refer to the chart below for progress by species completed this quarter. Target species # of workdays Progress (Oct- Dec 2015) Fuller s teasel 1 With 100% of second- year plants already removed from Byrne Preserve during the summer, this fall we focused on removing teasel rosettes from the grassland drainage. Purple starthistle 3 We focused on removing purple starthistle rosettes from the upper grassland trail. This will minimize the amount of flowering purple starthistle along the trail next summer. Bull thistle 1 Removed dense patches that were growing along the lower grassland trail and floodplain. Other We are delighted to introduce Stacey Dixon who recently joined the Acterra Stewardship team as a restoration specialist for our Los Altos and Los Altos Hills projects. She joins us after a year of teaching environmental education to youth and building multi- use and recreational trails on the East Coast. Stacey holds a B.S. in Society and Environment with a minor in Forestry from UC Berkeley. We are pleased to announce that Acterra Stewardship was awarded a grant from the Santa Clara Valley Water District for $136,000. This three- year grant begins next summer and will augment Acterra s stewardship efforts at Byrne Preserve by providing funds for expanded riparian restoration of the Moody Creek tributary in the Byrne grassland. National Charities League removing teasel rosettes
Bioengineering at Byrne Willow Workday
Bullis Charter School at Byrne Preserve December 2015