Printable Version

First Creek Middle School students test water samples under the tutelage of UW-Tacoma students as part of the Martin Luther King Jr. Day service learning event on January 18.

First Step for First Creek
In an exemplary showing of community partnership, east side residents and the City of Tacoma have been working together to improve conditions along First Creek for safety and environmental reasons. On January 18, students from the First Creek Middle School’s science club joined the effort by hosting their first service learning and clean-up event. This was also part of a national program with other organizations across the country celebrating Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday through service to the community. The event was the official launch of what everyone hopes will be a long term relationship between the students of First Creek, the UW-Tacoma’s Environmental Science students, the City of Tacoma, and the citizens of the First Creek community.

Through presentations given by the UW-Tacoma students, First Creek students and community members learned about stormwater management, pollution, the history of First Creek, and watershed science. Volunteers then moved into the First Creek gulch to monitor the stream water, clean-up trash, and remove blackberries and ivy. In just a few hours, the group had not only collected water quality information about the stream, but had also removed 2,200 pounds of garbage and 23 tires from First Creek! Special thanks to the Russell Family Foundation and the Puyallup Tribe for donating foul weather gear, boots, and work gloves, and the Washington Conservation Corps for helping prepare the site for this event.

Want to get involved? Join us at First Creek on April 24 for Global Youth Service Day when we will host a community wide clean-up and educational event. Efforts will be split between community clean-up, removal of invasive species, and planting in the cleared areas of the gulch. For more information about how you can help, contact Stream Team.

---

Installed in August 2009, this rain garden is one of seven that were built as part of a neighborhood cluster in the 1000 block of 8th Ave. N.W. in Puyallup. (Photo courtesy of David Hymel, Stewardship Partners.)

Nominate Your Yard for a FREE Rain Garden Demonstration
The City of Puyallup is excited to offer more rain garden installations in 2010! In 2009, the City paired with Stewardship Partners, Lowes, Pierce Stream Team and others to install seven rain gardens on 8th Ave. The City is searching for two more neighborhoods to receive FREE installation of 6-8 rain gardens in the SE, SW, and NE quadrants of the city. If you are interested in having your yard become a demonstration for Low Impact Development (LID) and getting your own rain garden, please contact Tim Parham, Development Services Department, 841-5556, or tparham@ci.puyallup.wa.us.Two local cities, Eatonville and Puyallup, are looking for local homeowners and their neighbors to volunteer their yards for a free rain garden makeover!

Stewardship Partners, a local non-profit, was awarded a National Fish and Wildlife Fund grant to design and install six rain gardens in a cluster at private homes in both the Town of Eatonville and the City of Puyallup. The purpose of these projects is to demonstrate how rain gardens and other low impact development techniques can infiltrate and filter stormwater where it falls, without the conventional stormdrain and pipe systems found in most communities, and thus better protect our local water bodies. These rain gardens are free to the homeowner, but there are some conditions. Rain garden locations must be:

Homeowners in this project will also agree to participate in the installation and long term maintenance of the rain garden. Stewardship Partners will work with homeowners to design the rain garden to match individual home landscaping and provide all the tools, equipment, materials, and plants for each home project.

In Eatonville, rain garden site preparation is planned for the week of May 17, and will culminate with a community planting event on May 22. In addition, Ciscoe Morris and KIRO Radio will host the “Gardening with Ciscoe” live radio show on-site during the Saturday planting event. To nominate your home or neighborhood in Eatonville, please contact Stewardship Partners at (206) 292-9875 or info@stewardshippartners.org.

In Puyallup, installation of the neighborhood rain garden cluster is scheduled for mid-June. To nominate you and your neighbors, contact Tim Parham, Assistant Planner at the City of Puyallup at (253) 841-5556 or tparham@ci.puyallup.wa.us; or Stewardship Partners at (206) 292-9875 or info@stewardshippartners.org.

If you would like to know more about rain gardens and how they work, please visit www.stewardshippartners.org and go to the rain garden section. You may also take a look at a neighborhood cluster of rain gardens installed last summer, located in the 1000 block of 8th Ave N.W. in Puyallup.

---

The Last Hurdle for Silver Creek
It has been five years since Stream Team volunteers first planted Silver Creek in Puyallup. At that time, it was a newly daylighted creek with an engineered channel that the water could freely flow through. With the help of volunteers and school groups, Stream Team planted nearly 1,500 native plants along the stream. Since the initial planting in 2005, both the channel and the weather have gone a little crazy.
The first summer after the planting had record temperature highs and little rain. The following winter there was massive flooding, which caused Silver Creek to shift and change course. As the channel shifted, plants that require placement near water were suddenly thirty from the bank, and plants that like high and dry conditions were now in the middle of the channel! Over the subsequent years, we have watched how Silver Creek has matured, thriving with native trees and shrubs in some areas, while void of native vegetation in others.
On April 17, Stream Team will return to Silver Creek to put the final touches on this site. With the help of Lions Club International, Northwest Christian School, and an Eagle Scout, we will plant 350 native plants, build a soft surface walking trail, and tackle the invasive grasses and ivy that are found on site. If you would like to help, please contact Stream Team. Event runs 9 a.m.-12 p.m.

Quarterly stream monitors should schedule their stream sampling between March 21, 2010, and June 14, 2010. Bi-monthly volunteers are scheduled to monitor during March and May. This time of year flows tend to be a bit higher and faster than during summer and early fall, so please take care when entering a stream to collect samples or measure flows.

Volunteers can choose whether they wish to follow a quarterly, every other month, or monthly stream monitoring schedule, depending on which works best for each individual. You may give Isabel a call at (253) 845-2973 if you have any questions about which monitoring schedule you should follow.

Stormdrain Stenciling
Did you know that your home is waterfront property? Yes, it’s true! Stormdrains carry surface water run-off along our neighborhood streets, directly into the nearest stream, lake, wetland, or Puget Sound. Water flowing through these stormdrains does not receive any sort of treatment before entering the receiving water body. This means that whatever we put down our stormdrains will wind up in these waterways as well. Stormdrain stenciling is a simple, fun way to prevent stormdrain pollution in your neighborhood. You can let everyone in your neighborhood know anything dumped in the street ends up in our waterways by stenciling the message “Dump No Waste” next to stormdrains.

Stormdrain stenciling is a great activity for many sorts of organizations such as neighborhood groups, scout groups, and school groups. Interested? Please contact Stream Team at (253) 845-2973 for information on checking out our stenciling kits.

For more current news and information, download a copy of our quarterly newsletter, the Tahoma View.