Excerpted from an email from Doug Ray - chapter member and man of all things Necanicum - we share the following bits regarding the work at Stanley Marsh/Thompson Creek site near Seaside:
"...I HAVE TO TELL YOU, the
really big news too......
.....Casey Corkrey and I walked the Stanley marsh ditch
creek mitigation site today to review some reed canary grass weed
whacking to be done and hand installing some small silt logs where we
now know the winter sheet flows are directed to enhance the hold up and
direction of the sheet flow.
As
we walked the SE corner we came across shallow inundation of only
several inches on plants that do NOT GROW in inundation… Casey noted
there was more water in the area then during the winter flows!
Low
and behold +/-10 feet above one of our installed wood jams is a new
beaver dam with about a 18-inch elevation between the ponded water and
below the dam!!!!
It
has fresh mud on the rim indicating work on it last night or over the
past few nights that has redirected flows back into the winter channels
and into areas that were not as wet as they are now during the summer
low flow season!!
Multiple species of NATIVE emergent wetland species are robustly establishing with reed canary grass winking out around them. It really is exceeding expectations!! I had no idea they would dam build
in the first summer with so little material available to them! ....they
of course have been going under the beaver exclusion fencing and taking
lots of willow stakes - all of which are re-sprouting despite having been
"pruned".
You must come down to see the dam and all the incredible passive wetland restoration developing from it."
Thanks Doug for the information!
Oh and for those tracking the EAS Grant that TVTU was granted for Circle Creek - which was the main purpose for Doug writing - it appears the permit process is nearly complete; a few signatures are needed but the work can begin! Truth be told the permits took a bit longer than anticipated due to some additional work that was required but Doug was on top of it and everything should be moving forward! Look for updates soon and plan on BEING INVOLVED!
