Earth Share of Washington

Day in the Park 2004 a Huge Success - More Than 500 Volunteers in Attendance

SEATTLE, WA -- More than 500 volunteers from across Western Washington converged on Discovery Park and Golden Gardens June 12, to celebrate Earth Share of Washington's Day in the Park 2004. In the morning, volunteers participated in a variety of restoration projects and finished out the day with a grand celebration featuring live music, a barbecue lunch, the grand opening of the newly renovated Golden Garden Bathhouse, and a thank you from Mayor Greg Nickels.

Volunteer Sharon Minter remarked "It was truly a pleasure to serve long side so many great people - and what fun we had! Thanks for including me and giving me the opportunity to give back a little for what we are so largely blessed with."

More than 50 environmental organizations, community groups, businesses, and government agencies participated in Day in the Park 2004.

"Day in the Park is an opportunity for everyone to get involved in helping the Earth and giving back to your community," proclaims Earth Share of Washington Program Coordinator and Day in the Park organizer, Dave Manelski. "For me, the most exciting part about working for Earth Share to plan Day in the Park is building community across so many different organizations. We have environmental organizations, community groups, corporate teams, and Seattle Parks personnel all working together. To see everyone out there giving back and having fun just made my day."

Here is a sample of the projects completed this year:
At Discovery Park:

• Volunteers rebuilt sections of the North Beach Trail,
• removed a large stand of invasive blackberries,
• cleaned up both the North and South Beach of trash,
• and removed a significant amount of ivy from the North Beach Trail.

At Golden Gardens:

• Volunteers saved more than 100 trees from the overwhelming ivy,
• repaired portions of Trail #3,
• eradicated the dunes from invasives, and maintained native vegetation there,
• cleaned up the beach and the fire pits,
• protected delicate wetland vegetation,
• and removed invasive garlic mustard from around the park.

Thank you to all of the volunteers, participating organizations, and sponsors who helped to make Day in the Park 2004 such a great event. A special thanks goes out to title sponsor IKEA, media sponsor 103.7 KMTT The Mountain, and Seattle Parks & Recreation without whom this event would not be possible.

We hope that you'll consider joining us for Day in the Park 2005. In the meantime, take a look at some of the photos from the 2004 event at the Day in the Park website (Thank you Luc Schoonjans and Doug Manelski for your photographic expertise).

EarthCorps' Awarded National Urban and Community Forestry Advisory Council Grant

U.S. Agriculture Secretary, Ann M. Veneman, recently announced $1,155,756 in federal grants through the National Urban and Community Forestry Advisory Council to 14 organizations working in our nation's urban and community forests. Earth Share of Washington member group EarthCorps (www.earthcorps.org) is the sole grant recipient in the Pacific Northwest (the national competition involved 118 proposals, including 9 from our region).

EarthCorps' project is titled: "Trees and Positive Youth Development: Research on Effect of Urban Forestry Work Experiences on Inner-City, Underserved Adolescents." The project will examine the affects of urban forestry experiences on urban youth. Dr. Kathleen Wolf, from the UW College of Forest Resources is participating in this project, bringing her international reputation for work on urban forest environmental issues, adolescent behaviour and health. The project will span the next two years.

Established under the 1990 Farm Bill, the 15-member National Urban and Community Forestry Advisory Council advises the Secretary on the care and management of trees, forests and related natural resources in urban and community settings throughout the nation. Council members include representatives from communities, universities, non-profit forestry and conservation citizen organizations, landscape and design consultants, the forest product or nursery industry, professional renewable natural resource organizations, and USDA. Grants help to fund programs that improve the quality of the environment and the quality of life in our urban communities and also help promote the ecological, economic, and social values of healthy urban and community forests. For more information, visit the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture website.

Lower Columbia River Water Trail Opens With Fanfare

The Lower Columbia River Water Trail opened with ceremonies at Vancouver, Cathlamet, and Skamokawa, Washington and St. Helens and Astoria, Oregon the first week in June. The final ceremony coincided with National Trails Day and the inauguration of Fort Clatsop National Memorial's Netul Landing, near the site of Lewis and Clark's winter camp in 1805/06.

Hundreds of citizens participated in the water trail launch events, with 45 at Vancouver's Marine Park, over 70 at Skamokawa, and busloads at Fort Clatsop. Guides from Alder Creek Canoe and Kayak, Skamokawa Paddle Center, and Columbia River Kayaking provided safety and years of river knowledge on paddles that accompanied the events. Mountain runoff and spring tides had kayaks speeding along at over 5 knots on some portions of the Columbia. Shorter big canoes trips were lively and moved at expedition speeds with up to 17 persons on board.

Local dignitaries and Lower Columbia River Water Trail Committee members spoke briefly at each mid-morning event. The opening of the water trail is a milestone on the way to providing safe publicly accessible facilities on the 146 mile trail on the Columbia River from Bonneville Dam to the Pacific. This effort began a meeting in Longview, Washington on August 27, 2001 when the Lower Columbia River Estuary Partnership convened a meeting to explore interest in a water trail. Ceremonies on both riverbanks honor years of previous water trail work and thousands of years of human use and appreciation of the Columbia River.

Many Water Trail Committee members and partner agencies attended. Among them were representatives of Washington and Oregon State Parks, National Park Service, United States Coast Guard Auxiliary, local city and county park, economic development, and community agencies, local paddlers, businesses, Lewis and Clark aficionados, and Washington Water Trails Association, an Earth Share of Washington member agency, instrumental in working on the water trail.

Over 80 sites have been identified as public launch and landing sites. More info available at the WWTA Lower Columbia River Water Trail page.

The Lands Council's Mike Peterson Recommends Forest Health

Last week Mike Peterson, Executive Director of the Spokane-based Lands Council, an Earth Share of Washington member organization, presented a pro-conservation review of forest health conditions to the Washington State Forest Health Work Group. Peterson, the only representative from the environmental community, serves on this 17-member panel, which is charged with offering the state's recommendations to manage national forest lands in Washington.

He discussed how logging, grazing and fire suppression has caused dramatic degradation of Washington's forests, and that these activities had increased fire danger and insect problems. Forest health, he said, involves intricate relationships among soils, water, and creatures of all varieties. Peterson outlined a watershed-based strategy to reduce wildfire risk in and around communities, while using prescribed fire in the backcountry to restore healthy forests.

The panel will issue its report to the Washington legislature and State Lands Commissioner by December 31.

Cool Website - July 2004

GreenTreks.org

GreenTreks is an environmental organization dedicated to promoting conservation through television & radio documentaries and how-to videos. They are promoting a new program called Natural Heroes which enables people to petition their local PBS station for more environmental programming.

With so many bad shows on TV these days, don't you want to see something positive and uplifting?! Well, we've made it easy for you to get programming that you want want to see on TV. Just go to: http://www.greentreks.org/naturalheroes/pbs.asp. From there you choose your state, then enter your information, and your request will be sent to every PBS and Public Television station in your state.

So please, take a minute and let your local stations know what you want to see on TV. In the past, these stations have told us to show them there's a demand for environmental programming, and they'll show it. So let's show them that there's a demand!

CORRECTION

In the June 2004 edition of The Earth Page in the article titled "Washington Leads Other States in Eliminating Toxins," we cited a recently introduced program by Governor Gary Locke to phase out harmful toxins Penta and Octa. In fact, this program has been around for years and while it has the support of Gov. Locke, it was widely championed by other legislators and conservation organizations as well.