Stewardship volunteers at the Middle Waterway (Simpson/Champion) project, January 2008 (Photo courtesy of Citizens for a Healthy Bay, 2008)
Status:
Ongoing
Project Summary
The Trustees have established restoration projects throughout the Puyallup River watershed and relied on the community, the landowners, Citizens for a Healthy Bay and Friends of the Hylebos to assist the Trustees in monitoring and maintenance of these sites. After several years of maintenance and monitoring there are no longer regulatory or legal requirements to provide additional maintenance, monitoring or adaptive management at many of these restoration sites although the need still exists to perform site inspections, maintenance, qualitative (observational) monitoring and adaptive management (e.g., vegetation management) at many of the sites. The Trustees are exploring options for creating a permanent program for monitoring and stewardship. For the near term, the City of Tacoma will perform and coordinate those stewardship functions under an agreement reached with NOAA on behalf of the Trustees, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the City.
On at least a biannual basis, the City, with the assistance of community groups, will monitor and document observations at each site in accordance with project-specific monitoring plans and will coordinate and manage all site maintenance activities as defined in the stewardship scope of work. Additional information about the project sites and the City's activities will also be available at the City's Environmental Stewardship Project page.
Project Summary
As part of the implementation of the restoration
plan, the Trustees initiated a Baywide Monitoring
Program (Program) to evaluate all natural resource damage
assessment (NRDA) restoration projects in Commencement
Bay. The Program is designed to generate practical information
for evaluating the trajectory of project development,
to identify successful and unsuccessful techniques or
restoration strategies, and to implement mid-course corrections
when necessary. It is intended to fulfill several important
purposes:
To measure success. This plan describes the reference
sites and criteria against which performance and success
can be measured.
To identify adaptive management activities (contingency
planning) that will define a range of mid-course correction
actions that could be implemented if the projects fail
to perform.
To address the monitoring requirements under various
permitting authorities.
To ensure inter-project monitoring consistency within
the CB/NRDA restoration program.
To serve as an outreach tool to provide information
to interested parties regarding the progress of the
projects and the Program.
Based on the monitoring reports and visual observations
of planting performance, along with consultations with
the public, contractors, and other technical staff as appropriate, the
Trustees initiate adaptive management procedures that
include, for example, removing additional feet of sand from portions of sites and replacing it with amended soil, planting more
varieties of native vegetation, and anchoring logs at
pre-determined locations to prevent erosion and to create
a bench environment. Modifications to projects
are monitored for success.
