The Creeks of Salinas (Gabilan, Sanborn, Natividad, Carr Lake, and Upper Carr Lake) provide value to the City of Salinas and the greater Monterey Bay. When healthy and intact they improve water quality, reduce flooding, provide open space for recreation, and are habitat for wildlife.
The Return of the Natives (RON) Restoration Education Project at the Watershed Institute of California State University Monterey Bay, in partnership with the City of Salinas, coordinates community-based watershed restoration projects in the traditionally underrepresented communities of East Salinas.
The Creeks of Salinas Restoration Projects were conceived in response to the problems of lack of open space for people, loss of natural habitat, poor water quality, flooding and sedimentation in three different urban creek systems within the Gabilan Watershed in Salinas, California: Lower Natividad Creek, Sanborn Creek and Gabilan Creek. These three urban waterways are part of the Carr Lake system, a 450-acre historic lake that was drained in the early 1900's to provide opportunities for farming. The lake basin annually still functions as a floodwater detention basin during the seasonal rainy season, and is farmed when it is not flooded. It is a long-time vision of the City of Salinas and the community to restore the entire Carr Lake system to a biologically rich nature area and regional park. While we work toward a major acquisition and restoration plan for the entire Carr Lake basin, we are restoring outlying portions of the Carr Lake system.
The goal of these projects is to restore urban creek habitats through community-based education and participation. Since 1994, RON Salinas Creeks Restoration programs have implemented riparian projects that have enabled over 12,000 K-12 school children, 2,000 members of the public, and 500 CSUMB students to restore over 300,000 native plants to urban creeks in East Salinas.
The Return of the Natives stresses restoration and hands-on education in order to involve schoolchildren from the local area in beautifying and restoring their environment back to a healthy and functioning condition. Native plants are utilized to reduce flooding and sedimentation as well as the creation of a riparian buffer zone of trees and shrubs to improve water quality and create wildlife habitat.
Return of the Natives has involved thousands of children from local schools in the restoration process. RON helps build and maintain greenhouses at selected schools throughout Monterey County. School children use the greenhouses to grow plants from seeds, and following this, the same children care and tend to their seedlings, can put these plants in the ground at one of the school plantings at the restoration sites. Community members have the opportunity to participate in the process of habitat restoration and creek clean-up days during public planting events.
K-12 students from the local community are involved in the entire process of restoration. School students gather garbage from the creeks, collect native seeds and cuttings, propagate and grow the plants in RON's 18 local school greenhouses, and install the plants at the restoration sites.
Benefits of Project
The Return of the Natives (RON) Restoration Education Project has provided the following enhancements to the Creeks of Salinas: Water Quality Improvement: Plantings of native riparian, wetland, and upland plants will create a significant riparian corridor and wetland, enhancing water quality for aquatic vertebrates and invertebrates, and reducing sedimentation in a watershed that flows directly into the Monterey Bay Marine Sanctuary at Elkhorn Slough.
Wildlife Habitat Enhancement: Establishing increased quantities of diverse native plant species improves wildlife habitat for the bird, mammal and reptile species that are utilizing the new wetland in an area in critical need of habitat.
Increase of Aesthetic Values: Establishing a healthy wetland and riparian corridor promotes awareness and stewardship in the surrounding community, creates a peaceful area where urban residents can observe nature, and encourages residents to use the bike and hike paths for low impact recreational activities such as bicycling, walking and picnics.
Park and Open Space Benefits: The successful implementation of the restoration projects supports the City of Salinas-Watershed Institute Partnership’s on-going restoration vision of acquiring, restoring and connecting historical wetlands and lakes in the City’s watershed. The restoration vision will significantly improve the quality and size of open space areas in the Salinas watershed that will be used by local urban residents for low impact recreational uses.
