I have only done a couple of different restoration projects for my internship at SPAWN, but my favorite has been working at Cohen’s which is a house on San Geronimo Road near Roys Pools. For the past few weeks, we have been working in the backyard where the San Geronimo Creek runs through. We have been laying down coir twine mats to help control erosion on the bank, slope, and shore, and then cutting holes in them and digging into the soil so that we can plant native species that has been growing in the nursery. These native plants are helping to benefit the ecosystem, and ultimately the Coho Salmon that are now starting to come upstream.
This is my favorite part of the internship because I have been working on it for a while now and I am really starting to see a transformation. When I started working on this project, which was actually about a week before I got the actual internship, the entire backyard was eroded and it was causing turbidity in the water. Now the erosion has been controlled and there are native plants all throughout the riparian corridor. I have put a lot of time and effort into this project and it is really exciting to see that we are actually accomplishing something that will benefit the salmon.
