Vandalism ruined restoration efforts

Published 9:00 pm Sunday, June 11, 2006

My class from Machias Elementary and another class from Allen Creek Elementary have been working on restoring Jones Creek in Marysville, and helping the native coho salmon. We had an experiment going on where both classes planted about 300 trees and spread a huge amount of mulch. We did this to see how different depths of mulch would affect the growth of invasive plants. We all felt proud of our work until we found out that Jones Creek had been vandalized. About half the trees had been ripped out, including Western Red Cedar, Salmonberry and two other species of trees. Those plants died from being dried out in the sun. It was also littered with trash and covered in graffiti.

I find this a huge waste of effort. We spent hours planting trees and spreading mulch. It makes me feel like no one cares about us or giving our native animals a healthy ecosystem.

When I first heard the news I thought, “Of course, when we try to do something to help we just get put down.” A lot of people cared about making this work, a lot of people wanted to help the salmon and have other species have a better habitat.

This was also a huge waste of money. We had gotten a grant, thanks to Cara Ianni, to do the Restoration Education for Young Stewards, or REYS program. The seedlings were also expensive, and because this was done on a field trip, we had to pay for transportation.

In conclusion, to me and many others, the vandalism at Jones Creek was frustrating, sad and disappointing. I want people to know how much work went into this and what happened to it.

ALANA FOUTS

6th grader at Machias Elementary

Snohomish