FOSC staff conducted annual monitoring of the pallid manzanita colony at Chabot Space and Science Center in late May. Pictured is Restoration and Nursery Manager Ella Matsuda measuring the height of a thriving young pallid manzanita.
Photo by Kate Berlin.
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Friends of Sausal Creek is a volunteer-based, community organization. We appreciate your support of our education, monitoring, and restoration programs in the
Sausal Creek Watershed.
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Upcoming Community Events
Dimond Park Bioblitz and Jingletown Estuary History and Art Walk
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Saturday, June 4, 10 a.m.-12 p.m.
Join Wholly H2O and FOSC for an all-ages fun BioBlitz at Dimond Park. We'll get up close and personal with our watershed ecosystem residents, documenting plants and animals with our cameras. Send us any cool photos you'd like to be featured in our newsletter!
Register here and you will receive a follow-up email with the Dimond Park location and other helpful BioBlitz information. Come prepared to mask up!
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Sunday, June 12, 10 a.m.-12 p.m.
Want to know more about the history of the Oakland Estuary and the vibrant arts district of Jingletown?
Join FOSC, guide Dennis Evanosky, and local artist Jill McLennan for a tour of Jingletown. The walk coincides with the East Bay Open Studios, so plan to visit some studios afterward. Find more info at the Jingletown Arts and Business Community website and the East Bay Open Studios website.
Required RSVP sign-up here. M eet us at the Jingletown Native Garden on Peterson Street between Chapman and Ford.
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Explore the Watershed
Secrets of Survival: Native Plants in the Summer
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On hikes this time of year, a sense of loss sometimes hits me. Spring is coming to an end and I’m still wishing in vain for a few more rains than the drought can muster. Before long, the green hillsides will turn gold blonde as the European oat grass dries up. Those golden hills have become an iconic (and at times beautiful) part of the California landscape, but, if I’m honest, sometimes they just feel desolate and sad. I wonder what native plants and wildlife would be here if the invasives hadn’t… invaded. Where is the life hiding out in this trying season?
Investigating that question, it’s clear that life most certainly is present. Looking at Ithuriel’s spear, blue dicks, and manzanitas—all found in the watershed—we get a window into a wondrous world of summer dormancy and resilience.
—FOSC volunteer, Charlotte Rivka Halloran-Couch
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Left to right: Ithuriel’s spear (Triteleia laxa) in bloom. Photo by Charlotte Halloran-Couch. Ithuriel’s spear beginning to go to seed. Photo by Margo Bors. Blue dicks (Dipterostemon capitatus.) Photo by Fred Roberts.
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Friend of the Month
John Brega
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I had the opportunity while hiking with John Brega through Joaquin Miller Park during the East Bay SOD Blitz to chat with him about his tenacious restoration efforts over the years in this park.
We arrive on our SOD Blitz hike to an area in the Sunset Trail grasslands that he has been restoring for nearly a decade. It’s a half mile stretch that in 2016 suffered from about 85 percent coverage of invasive Italian thistle—five to eight feet tall. He felt compelled to do something about it.
John (and some occasional grazing goats) hammered away at the thistle, weeding for a couple of hours each day and on weekends. Over the next year or two, in this section of the trail, the forest of thistle that originally stood up to eight feet high was reduced to a smaller population of young plants only about 14 inches high. After a few more years, John was able to clear them when they were barely six inches high. When you look today at this section of trail in the grasslands, you’d be hard pressed to find any Italian thistle because of his persistence.
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John Brega (left) with neighbors, Cindy and Linnea Gullikson, on a SOD Blitz hike in Joaquin Miller Park. |
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John is a self-described "numbers guy," and these figures showcase the success of his long game. John’s initial haul-out from just the first 75 feet of the trail filled his pick-up truck bed three feet above the cab. He pulled six truckloads of green waste bags (about 12 bags each load) out of the ravine. Then he used a yard vacuum to zap up the thistle down, filling one and a half green bins with the fluffy stuff that he guesses could equate to hundreds of billions or trillions of seeds. By his calculations, in 2016 alone, John spent the equivalent of three person-months pulling thistle on the Sunset Trail—removing about 1.2 million thistle plants in total!
He's moved on from thistle to taking on invasive mustard and poison hemlock and regularly tackles acacia in the park as well, with a Friends of Joaquin Miller Park crew. Restoration is only one aspect of the impact he's had on the park. As a true citizen scientist, he also closely observes and documents tree distress, rebound, and die-off throughout the East Bay parklands and has partnered with the U.S. Forest Service, Cal Fire, and USDA among others to share the changes he's captured through photographs and video over the years.
John, we at FOSC are ever so grateful for your dedicated efforts to protect biodiversity and forest health in the watershed—and for sticking it to the thistle.
—Kate Berlin
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Kudos Corner
Eagle Scouts in Beaconsfield Canyon
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Since 2018, Beaconsfield Canyon has been the fortunate host for five Eagle Scout candidates from Troop 234 in Moraga and Troops 4 and 6 in Piedmont. Phillip Ku, Vincent Pickering, Matthew Lee, Tommy Smegal, and Nathan Casey, in separate projects, designed and installed series of redwood steps in various parts of the canyon and improved trails to give volunteers better access for restoration work. “Both sides of the canyon are really steep,” says Beaconsfield Volunteer Coordinator Richard Kauffman, “and we’ve always worried about volunteers losing their footing. These projects make the work safer and give us access to parts of the canyon we couldn’t access before.”
In some cases, the scouts cut redwood 4x4s, leveled the dirt, and secured the steps with steel rebar or aluminum pipe.
In others, where the trail quickly erodes because of the steep slope, they had to build a crib wall—basically a wooden box sunk into the trail on three sides—or dig postholes to secure the steps so they wouldn’t move. As with all Eagle Scout projects, the scouts had to design the project, raise money for tools and supplies, and recruit other scouts or family members to help with the installation.
Scouts, thank you all for the great work and for enhancing the restoration effort in Beaconsfield Canyon.
—Richard Kauffman
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Above: Philip Ku and friends.
Below: Tommy Smegal and Eagle Scout crew.
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Arts in the Watershed
Beatrice Thornton - Photography With Watershed Invasives
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Beatrice Thornton is an Oakland-based archivist, design historian, and environmental land artist whose primary medium is film photography.
She develops black-and-white film and prints in her home darkroom, most recently mixing her own developers using more sustainable ingredients, like foraged plants, rather than traditional darkroom chemicals. She is part of a larger movement of film photographers following sustainable, alternative, darkroom practices. Beatrice’s evolving photographic style mainly depicts her local landscape, oftentimes through in-camera double exposures, mostly shot on 35mm and medium-format films.
Her recent projects incorporate native and invasive plants into developer recipes. She had the idea to collaborate with FOSC to photograph invasive species from the watershed as well as use them in the development process after seeing so many invasives on her almost daily runs and walks, and through volunteering at the FOSC-supported pollinator garden.
See the full article here.
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Title: FOSC Native Plant Nursery Greenhouse and View From the Nursery, Earth Day 2022
Medium: Scanned 35mm black-and-white film
Description: In-camera double exposure of FOSC Native Plant Nursery greenhouse and view, taken on Earth Day 2022, developed in nasturtium foraged near Sausal Creek, ascorbic acid, and washing soda.
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Join our Team
We're Hiring!
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Join our team as the Education and Outreach Coordinator (EOC)!
The EOC leads FOSC’s environmental education program and maintains and builds community connections to engage the lower Sausal Creek watershed community (Fruitvale) in stewardship opportunities and urban greening projects.
Applications will be accepted until the position is filled, but applicants are encouraged to apply by June 17, 2022.
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FOSC Community Support
Noting and Reporting Creek Issues
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In late April, Wade Woodfill alerted us to an EBMUD water line rupture at El Centro Ave. which flooded parts of the creek with gushing muddy, chlorinated water. Although chloramines help to make our tap water safe to drink, they are toxic to fish, amphibians, and aquatic insects. Thanks to Wade's quick action, we were all able to sound the alarm, calling in reports to EBMUD, 311, and the city Watershed Division to address the problem.
You are the eyes and ears out in the watershed! Active community monitoring and reporting helps us keep the watershed healthy. If there is a creek issue—sewer overflow, hazardous spill, illegal dumping—contact 311 right away and either email or call FOSC at 510-501-3672 so we can also investigate and support the report, track the problem, and follow up as necessary.
For more info, visit the creek issue reporting page on our website.
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To keep our community safe, please come prepared to wear a mask and social distance. |
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Dimond Park Bioblitz hosted by Wholly H2O and FOSC
Saturday, June 4, 10 a.m.-12 p.m.
Details on where to meet will be sent af
Jingletown Native Plant Garden and Open Art Studio Tour
Sunday, June 12, 10 a.m.-12 p.m.
Meet at the Jingletown Native Garden on Peterson Street between Chapman and Ford.
Restoration Workday in Joaquin Miller Park
Saturday, June 4 and 25, 9 a.m.-12 p.m.
See calendar for meeting point.
FOSC Board of Directors Meeting
Via Zoom
Wednesday, June 8, 5-7 p.m.
Bridgeview Trailhead Workday
Sundays in June, 9-11 a.m.
Bridgeview Pollinator Garden
Native Plant Nursery Volunteer
Drop-In Hours
Wednesdays in June 1:30-4:30 p.m.
Saturday, June 11 and 25, 1:30-4:30 p.m.
Friends of Sausal Creek Native Plant Nursery
Restoration Workday in Dimond Canyon
Saturday, June 11 and 18, 9 a.m.-12 p.m.
Meet at the Scout Hut in Dimond Park.
Beaconsfield Canyon Restoration Workday
Saturday, June 25, 9 a.m.-12 p.m.
Beaconsfield Canyon, Montclair
Sausal Creek Trail Stewardship Crew
Sunday, June 26, 10 a.m.-1 p.m.
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Clarkia rubicunda, known by the common name farewell to spring, in bloom at the FOSC Native Plant Nursery Demo Garden in Joaquin Miller Park.
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The nursery is in need of clean 1-gallon nursery pots if you've got some you'd like to donate!
Please pressure wash with a hose or wash with soapy water to remove any soil and reduce soil-borne pathogens. We'll sterilize them when they get here! At this time we cannot accept pots of other sizes.
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We need volunteers in the watershed now more than ever!
Join us for one of our many workdays this June.
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Our mission is to restore, maintain, and protect the Sausal Creek Watershed. We educate future generations, involve the community in local environmental stewardship, and collaborate with agencies and other nonprofits to have a positive impact on the local ecosystem. |
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Contact:
Anna Marie Schmidt
Executive Director
510-501-3672
Ella Matsuda
Restoration and Nursery Manager
510-325-9006
Rosa Nelson
Outreach and Stewardship Intern
Kate Berlin
Communications and Restoration Intern
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Photo Credits: Kate Berlin, Charlotte Rivka Halloran-Couch, Richard Kauffman, Beatrice Thornton
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