WatershedEvents

Gregg Mecklem Campaign

The view from Roy Rogers Road

I’ve decided to support Mr. Mecklem for Washington County Commissioner / District 4. When I learned of his candidacy and watched a video of him giving testimony before the Commission previously this year I was impressed with his message. So, I wrote him and asked him to tell me a little bit about his political perspective. Here, in part, is what he had to allow:

__________________

Hi Eric,

…The election for District 4 will be won or lost in Hillsboro. How well we do will depend on door to door canvassing to get my message out. One of the most important aspects of that message is to maintain farm and natural resource lands close in to urban areas for both the health and enjoyment of urban dwellers and to protect watersheds. It's a new era and we have to act quickly to change the way we relate to the earth. I farm in Helvetia and own and manage forest lands in the Glenwood area. We always fence off any streams or ponds from livestock and I'm replanting Oregon White Ash along lower elevation streams/ponds for cover. In our forest in Glenwood, we preserve wide streamside borders of western red cedar, hemlock, alder and maple and harvest only selectively. We never harvest near streams because native cutthroat and coho smolts need cool water temperatures. Those lands are in the Gales Creek and West Fork Dairy Creek drainages. My long term plan is to permanently maintain mature forests along both seasonal and year round streams, and to create a habitat that encourages repopulation of those streams with native cutthroat trout. I'm hoping to introduce a resolution and work toward reserving mature forest watersheds on the 50,000 acres of state forest lands located within Washington County as a way to help protect the health of the Gales Creek-Tualatin watershed.

…I would generally describe myself as an environmentalist-agriculturist-forester all wrapped into one. I was raised in Oregon so I know what we lost and what we can regain. I am practical, but definitely progressive in my environmental views and tend to be fiscally middle of the road. Government should be there to help but not to usurp. Two years ago, we put a solar system in that produces all of our electricity--the government helped, through tax credits, etc.--but now we're one ranch that is off the grid for a good portion of the year, so we're burning less coal or spilling more water for salmon. That's a good role that government can play…

Greg Mecklem (for County Commissioner District 4)

__________________

A Little Education

Fowler Middle School students search an owl pellet and find the skeletal remains of unidentified prey species. 

I’m currently working on a section of my book that focuses on some of the organizations that play significant roles in the daily affairs of the Fanno Creek watershed. These run the gamut from large state supported outfits like the Department of Environmental Quality to small local non-profits groups like Fans of Fanno Creek. And while they vary significantly in terms of mission and impact, virtually all of them are involved in education at the community level. Sometimes this involvement comes in the form of specialized training programs or workshops designed to address a highly specific watershed issue. Many of the trainings offered by Portland’s Bureau of Environmental Services (BES) come to mind, particularly their Clean Rivers Education program. Clean Water Services, Portland’s Washington County counterpart provides similar programs, as do most other regional and state-based agencies. Non-profit watershed organizations offer similar programs and services. For example, the Tualatin River Keepers conduct a series of outdoor programs including day camps during the summer.

In addition to delivering or sponsoring focused education and training activities the majority of these organizations provide substantial support to th educational institutions located in or near the Fanno Creek watershed. This support comes in the form of goods and services and includes project management and technical resources; venues for field trips and community activities; heavy equipment and skilled work crews; and restoration supplies up to and including trees and salmon fry. To my knowledge the collective level and general quality of this support has not been calculated, but it should be. I am pretty sure the numbers would surprise even the folks who are directly involved in the process. A case in point is the level of assistance that the students and faculty of Fowler Middle School in Tigard have received from numerous watershed groups over the last couple decades. Below are a few photos showing how some of that assistance has been put to use by Sue Manning and her seventh graders. Several projects are involved: the replacement of two traffic islands in the main parking lot with rain gardens or bio-swales; regular restoration work in Senior Hutsell's Woods; restocking Summer Creek with Salmon; and the dissection of owl pellets.

A student marks out the main body of a rain garden while Lori Faha (far right, red jacket) and a crew from Clean Water Services look on. 

 Tony Gilbertson of CWS shows students how to place native plants through the coconut fiber mat that covers the bottom of the rain garden.

 

Students paint "rain bumps" that also serve to redirect water flow across the parking lots to the bio-swale. 

The finished bumps. 

 

Planting native vegetation along Senior Hutsell's Trail, a regular activity for seventh graders at Fowler. 

Sue Manning provides background and instructions for the Owl Pellet Pull. 

Resources from Portland's Audubon Society.

Just a few of the final assignments showing bones from a bird as well as from rodents. 

 Chinook fry ready to return to the wild cruise through Sue's refrigerated tank. Both tank and fry courtesy ODFW. 

 A fish named "Snow Ball" prepares for a short trip to the Pacific via Summer Creek/Fanno Creek/Tualatin River/Columbia River. 

 Point of Release. A defender of wildlife watches as his fish moves away. "See you back here in a few years?"

Sylvan Creek - Iris Dumping

 

I finally made it over to the area where someone has dumped several clumps of iris and several hundred pounds of old concrete and gravel (post from the 10th of this month). I don't know enough about these plants to be able to identify one from its rhizome, but I'd love to know if this is flag iris. So, I'm sending this post to a couple folks I know in the hopes that one of them might be able to peg this baby. I may also propagate one in a container and see what it gives me for a flower.  

Also, further to yesterday's post about eagles, lo and behold two red tail hawks cruised the area this afternoon, doing the same kind of airborne dance as the eagles only at a lower altitude. Maybe this portion of the watershed is going to end up with nests of both? I haven't been creek-crawing through Raleighwood park lately so I think I might check it out when time permits. There are some good sized stands of large trees in that area and it is full of small game. I need to see what the beaver down there are up to these days as well. Stay tuned.

Eagles Over the West Slope

Heard a great sound in the sky almost directly over my house today. Must have been around noon. Two bald eagles on either pole of a relatively tight circle, calling out to each other as they circled the wagons I presume. They were moving from the northeast to southwest, in the general direction of Raleighwood Park. I’ve never seen eagles in this neck of the woods before, but maybe their presence explains the fact that I haven’t seen the pair of red tails that used to be a constant fixture around this part of the Slope in over a year. I hope the pair I saw today are setting up shop and not just passing through. I had to choose between watching them with the field glasses or running down to the basement to get my camera. I opted out for personal satisfaction. Sorry, but they were magnificent. Keep your heads up and your eyes open!

Happy Days

Yesterday was Oregon’s 151st birthday. I celebrated by flying my funky new State of Oregon flag. Love that beaver.

  

Yesterday was also the beginning of the Chinese New Year. We celebrated by stopping by Oujimaya’s and picking up some wonderful prawns for dinner and burning a red candle in the kitchen. “Gung hay fat choy,” as my friend April Fong would say. The 14th was Valentine’s day, as well, so we celebrated by working in the yard, eating the prawns, and having the best chocolate soufflé imaginable for desert. It was the best chocolate anything I have ever consumed and I would include a photo of it here, as well as the shrimp, the salad, the Italian bread, the olive oil, the Pellegrino and the black coffee, but they are all gone. Love that wife of mine. Thank you Kitty for being my Valentine for more than 30 years.

Finally, yesterday marked the first serious deadline I’ve imposed on my book project. For quite some time I’ve been determined to bring this project to a close and the first step in that process was to complete the skeletal structure of the book. In order to do that I set the 14th as the day when I would stop – I mean really stop - researching and writing content and start beating the material I’ve written into a manuscript, one that I would be willing to show to someone else. Did I make my deadline? Of course, it isn’t the kind you can miss. I now have two 3” notebooks filled with buff colored paper on which I have poured out most of my story about Fanno Creek. It’s all still a deplorable mess and there is a ton of work to be done on most of it, but I think I would be very unwise to go any further without getting feedback from a variety of sources, including (especially) publishers. One way or the other, there is now some light at the end of the tunnel, thank God.

Which leads me to the next deadline. On March 15th I will be sending out packages to a variety of publishers – proposal, writing samples, notes, photos. That may sound like a long time, but I am going to take all of next week off from work and devote the entire time to Chloe and Jake, two of my grandchildren that I haven’t seen much of in the last year. (I’m going to do the same with Quinn and Jane after the 15th in a similar celebration.) While the publishers evaluate the proposal and my friends and loved ones labor away at the manuscript I will continue working on sections that need attention (there are many) and try my best to stay away from new developing new material. Hopefully the next hard deadline will be set by a publisher, but if humanly possible I will bring this project to a close by the 26th of June. That’s the date that I made my first entry into the book’s log. Here are some excerpts from that very first day of research:

“6/26/07 – Sylvan Creek / Upper and Middle Reaches

Surveyed multiple sections of the creek between Sylvan Hill (Sylvan Highlands) and the intersection of Scholls Ferry Road and TV Highway…The ravine runs due west for approximately three quarters of a mile and then turns south. After roughly another mile the ravine terminates in the wall of the Sunset Highway. The rate of fall throughout most of this upper reach is steep, and the elevation at the freeway is approximately 648 feet…Access to the creek is easily gained at Raleighwood Park, a narrow strip of public land that runs for about a half mile in the residential neighborhood called Raleigh Hills. This “park” is under the jurisdiction of the Tualatin Hills Parks and Recreation District, and is not maintained to any large degree. The course is relatively flat at this point and the creek travels south for about another quarter mile before it disappears under the complex roadway comprised by the intersection of the TV Highway, Oleson Road, Scholls Ferry Road. Somewhere on the south side of this intersection, behind a row of commercial buildings Sylvan Creek merges with Fanno Creek, potentially the main object of this investigation…” (underscored for emphasis).

Today, President’s Day, I’m going to celebrate my work by putting Buddy in the truck and going down to the confluence of Fanno Creek and the Tualatin River. If time permits and subject matter warrants I’ll post some photos later in the day. In any event, happy President’s Day. Thank you Founding Fathers.

(Slight correction for any family members reading this. I must be going senile because the Kids aren't due here until the end of MARCH. I have to learn how to read...)

The Criminal Element

At 7:00 PM, on the second Thursday of every month, the Fans of Fanno Creek gather and discuss issues related to the creek. I’ve been attending these meetings on a regular basis for almost three years. We meet in the old Fanno Farm House which is located just east of where Fanno Creek runs under Hall Boulevard. There’s high ground in this area, just enough to elevate the house a few inches above the 100 year floodplain. Fanno moved his wife and family out of a log cabin and into this attractive two-storey frame house in 1859. The area has matured into an upscale business park and the house is now surrounded by functionally designed office buildings and well-manicured grounds. I’ve developed the habit of stopping off at a Starbucks located in the small plaza just a block east of the house where I  nurse a triple grande latte and reflect on whatever happens to have been the pressing business of the day before going on to the meeting. Last night that business turned out to be a section of my book that deals with urban wildlife. Earlier in the day I’d wrapped up a long sub-section focused on the subject of beaver. Overall I felt pretty good about my progress for the day, but I wasn’t sure I had been able to properly portray the magnitude of the infrastructure issues that are likely to develop in what I believe may be the very near future. I was still grinding away on the topic as I left the coffee shop. Lost in thought and more or less oblivious to the surroundings, I stepped through the door and was immediately accosted by a pair of mallards. They had been parked just a few feet away from the door in the small alley or breezeway that runs between two buildings and pounced the moment I exited.

“Quackquackquack. Quack!” which I understood to mean “Your croissant or your life. Suckka!” I tried to reason with them, tried to explain that the flour was just so many empty carbs,  that the dairy products would only block their tiny arteries. It was no use. They backed me up against the wall. The hen got nasty. Twice she nibbled at the toe of my shoe. “Quack! Quack!” The drake hung back a couple feet, poised to finish me off if things got out of hand. Finally, in desperation I tore a small chunk off the pastry (forgive me Brian Wegener) and flung it towards the patio on my left. They fell for it, thank God, and while they waddled off to grab the goods I dashed towards my truck.

Mugged by ducks. The indignity of it all!

(In a surveillance photo taken last summer, the Lucky Landings Gang closes in on an unsuspecting child and prepares to knock her down and steal her white bread.)

  

 

Sylvan Creek Update

 

I heard back from the Bureau of Environmental Services regarding the seepage I reported (my last post) two days ago. Quite a quick response, I thought. In essence the seepage appears to be caused by iron bacteria. Seepages of this kind are fairly common, come to find out, and nothing to worry about. Here is what Stewart Rounds of the USGS wrote in response to my questions about the stuff:

Hi, Eric.

Groundwater in the Tualatin River basin is often anoxic (has no dissolved oxygen), particularly if the flow path is long. Localized, short groundwater flow paths might still have some oxygen, but longer paths are typically anoxic. This means that iron, which has a far greater solubility in anoxic water, can dissolve from the geologic materials and have a relatively high concentration in the groundwater.

Once that groundwater seeps to the surface, the water comes in contact with air and the dissolved oxygen concentration increases above zero.

At that point, the dissolved iron, which was likely in the +2 oxidation state (ferrous iron) oxidizes to its +3 state (ferric iron), which has a much lower solubility in water and therefore may be "supersaturated" -- having a higher concentration than its solubility allows in oxygenated water. As a result, the ferric iron precipitates as an iron oxide or iron oxyhydroxide -- essentially rust.

Whether iron bacteria are taking advantage of this process or not, it is very common to see "rust" stains or accumulations at groundwater seeps. It is simply telling you that the groundwater was anoxic at the point it hit the atmosphere, and it was transporting a significant concentration of dissolved iron.

Hope this helps.

-Stewart Rounds

USGS

Thanks for the detailed answer, Stewart. Thanks also to Cloudy Spears from BES who first responded to my post and put my mind at ease. I love it when watershed issues work out in this manner.

Pollution on Sylvan Creek

 

Buddy and I went for our morning walk today. We usually take the Raab Road route that runs along the south side of Sunset Highway and invariably pause to study Sylvan Creek as it exits its culverts and heads for Fanno Creek a couple miles away. Today I noticed for the first time some rust colored seepage flowing into Sylvan Creek about a hundred feet downstream from the culvert.

 

I’m surprised I’ve never noticed this before because when I returned to take photographs I could tell that it is a well established flow. I’ll notify BES of the seepage, although I suspect they may already be aware of the issue. There are signs of fresh activity down there – cleared brush, fresh paint on a nearby sewer overflow tower, trampled ivy – which suggest that an inspection crew may have been through the area recently. Still, always better to report than ignore.

 

There’s also a fresh dump site on the rim of the ravine just a  short distance south of the intersection of Raab Road and SW Canyon Road that I will report to Metro. Items include a clump of something that looks a lot like lilies, or worse still a clump of iris, a large slab of concrete and a cubic foot or so of gravely stuff.

 

Dumping in this ravine takes place on a fairly regular basis, I’m afraid, but this is the worst I’ve seen in awhile. I’ll go back and try to gather up the vegetation myself, although the incline is very steep and unstable. Maybe I’ll find other interesting stuff, and if so will post it here. Incidentally both TRK and TRWC post links on their sites that can direct you to reporting sections for a wide variety of agencies.

Lake Oswego's Sensitive Lands

Headwaters of Ball Creek's eastern Branch 

Tonight I attended a workshop hosted by the Second Look Task Force, a committee comprised of nine citizens from the City of Lake Oswego. The committee was established by the city’s planning commission and is engaged in reviewing the Sensitive Lands provisions of the Community Development Code within “the context of its environmental and regulatory purposes…” Ultimately their review will culminate in a set of recommendations to the Planning Department for changes that:

• Maintain or improve the current level of environmental protection.

• Maintain compliance with Metro and State standards.

• Increase flexibility for property owners.

• Simplify or clarify the code or permit application process. 

It looked to be a rowdy meeting at first because several folks in the audience were with a group known as Lake Oswego Stewards. They were pretty vocal about a variety of things including the makeup of the committee and its processes. But order was restored rather quickly, I thought, and the workshop began without too much discord and delay.

Even though I do not live in or otherwise have property in the city I decided to attend. For one thing I was interested to see that the city is addressing watershed  issues with a process that invites extensive public input. This is a good thing, regardless of the issues and to some extent even the outcomes. As I studied the organization of the event and reviewed the makeup of the committee I was struck by a sense of overall quality in the approach. I recognized a couple of the committee members on sight and was impressed that individuals of their stature and abilities were involved. My sense was that you could expect good things out of this group. I could not help but wish that a similar approach had been taken when the City of Tigard last addressed an issue with their sensitive lands code. But that’s another post, so I won’t dwell on it here.

I was also interested in the process because Ball and Carter Creeks are involved. These creeks are two of the most severely degraded of Fanno Creek’s many tributaries. I have discussed them elsewhere on this blog, but I will briefly cover them again. Ball Creek gets its headwaters from two catchments or eco-vaults immediately below large parking areas on the PCC/Sylvania campus. From there it makes a tortuous path down the southeast flank of Mount Sylvania to a place just east of the interchange between Highway 5 and Highway 217, whereupon it dives into the bowels of fill, masonry, pipes and what not that support the roadways. The creek reemerges into daylight a block or so west of the freeway and then trickles or slams (season dependent) into Fanno Creek at a confluence just a few dozen yards south of Bonita Street. It’s silly I know, but it brakes my heart every time I visit or study it on my maps.

Carter Creek. The water is stained by rust flushed from a boiler at one of the nearby commercial sites. Fines were levied. 

I’m not sure exactly where Carter Creek gets its water. It’s one of the shortest tributaries in the Fanno System, but unlike Ball Creek it enjoys its own “friends group” which means it is loved rather than totally ignored like so many other Fanno Creek tributaries. I’ve walked the reach between Bangy Road and Kruse Woods Drive (roughly) and found the stream to be quite pretty in a few spots. The area suffers terribly from the aftermath of the massive construction work that took place when the various office parks along Kruse Way and Meadows were developed. The residences along the south bank are on Bonita and a few of these have decks or other landscaping that run right up to the low water levels of the stream – into the most sensitive parts of the watercourse in other words.

By chance and good luck I ended up at the only workshop table where I felt I could make a substantive contribution. The general question to be addressed at this table was the concept of allowing deviations from codes governing sensitive lands when it could demonstrably result in a “net environmental benefit.” This is a complex topic but I have a non-complex perspective on it, and it goes something like this: No increase in total area, no possibility of a realized net environmental benefit (whatever that net may be.) So I would support waived or otherwise modified code in favor of land owners and their interest in further developing properties that lie in areas designated as sensitive watershed, but only to the extent that the net included net increases in square area AND cubic capacity. I have much more to say on the subject in my book (may it ever be finished and published, Thank You God!)

As it stands right now I commend Lake Oswego for establishing this committee and I commend the committee for the mature and disciplined manner in which it conducted tonight’s meeting. I just hope  the committee comes up with recommendations that won’t further negotiate the watershed into the position of being hacked to death by a thousand tiny cuts. And then I just hope the Planning Commission and the City Council will pay attention to those recommendations.

We shall see.

 

Ball Creek, now swollen with the remains of Carter Creek and in an ugly mood, blasts out of a culvert just a few hundred yards west of its exit from pipes under I-5. At this spot it is roughly 100 yards east of its confluence with the main stem of Fanno Creek. The surge is roughly five feet deep and carries a huge load of suspended silt.