who wants to help with my term paper?

so for my environmental science course this term we are we are doing a very cool and practical real world kins learning on Bronson creeks in Hillsboro OR, the major outcome of the course is a term paper that looks a whole lot like the reports the EPA and various enviromental consulting firms use to propose/justify restoration work.

its meant to finnish up something like this
(warning 7 age PDF)

it's my intent when I get around to writing my recomendation section to say "bronson creek is too trashed to ever exect it to return to a natural salmon suporting state................ thus the best course of action would be to use this land for maximum services to the surround population thus reducing the load that population places on the environment elsewhere. human needs can be best served with minimal enviromental impact by following the intensive planiting regime below ...... with all respect to permaculture principles ........

My instuctors should enjoy seeing something outside of the typical lets put the bends back in the creek and make sure none of the oil ever leeks off the roads again.

the chalenges to planting the area are
1) lots of runnoff from paved areas so plantings need to be pollution tolerant and avoid bioaccumulation
2) shade on this streem is vital to keeping temps down for salmon over in the tualitin
3) the whole park/created wetland that the study reach is in the center of is the creeks floodplain and because the rest of the floodplain has been built up and dyked off it gets deep here

I'm sure there's more

like I said this is a though exersize.
on the other hand if I get good info from folks who are using their real names here I will quote you as a source in the paper

I love this class

You might get a useful thought or two in here ..certainly it's worth watching
http://www.ted.com/talks/natalie_jeremijenko_the_art_of_the_eco_mindshift.html

brice Moss wrote:
....  it's my intent when I get around to writing my recomendation section to say "bronson creek is too trashed to ever exect it to return to a natural salmon suporting state................

I took a class like that a few years back, and would warn against having the outcome pre-determined. Much better off if you try to set aside biases and jump in weighing different goals, tradeoffs and costs against each other.  The process might surprise you.

The assessment we did was on a proposed widening of the road. Instinctive response is that roads were bad, put a brake on development by saying no to road expansion. But the congestion on the narrow road was to the point where air and noise pollution would be worse by choosing the 'no action' option ... all that stop and go reduces mileage and means more noxious chemicals from engine fluctuations. Diesel trucks are the worst - until they get to a steady speed, they spew lots of nasty particulates.

Also, while I know nothing of that creek, it sounds like you have given up. You may be right about using it for mitigation, but are there examples of other streams in equally bad shape making a comeback??

As far as giving up...at one time the Thames river  flowing through London was considered a "dead" river and several years ago they reported that they had managed to turn it around to the degree that  salmon (which have the reputation of needing clean water) were again travelling up it...not sure if this is still the case but might be worth looking into, and if still the case, how they managed it.  London would have a magnitude of problem greater than your neck of the woods with regard to pollution to deal with.

I assume you have seen this already?

http://www.cleanwaterservices.org/Content/Documents/Watershed%20Info/Bacteria%20DNA%20Fingerprinting%20Study.pdf

Skimming the report it sounds like the areas with the highest bacteria levels were places where people were feeding ducks.

What data do you have to support your conclusion that "Bronson creek is too trashed to ever expect it to return to a natural salmon supporting state"?

Note that unless there is some physical barrier, it is up to the salmon to decide if the creek is "too trashed".  Sometimes they will surprise you.

Regarding using urban lands to grow food, Toby Hemenway has some good info in his book Gaia's Garden: http://books.google.com/books?id=gxW0MGXha6cC&pg=PA11

The ability of the creek to eventually support fish, and intensive management of the riparian zone for local benefit may not be mutually exclusive.  More engineered landscapes surrounding the creek corridor may be necessary to mitigate urbanization effects of hydrology and increase groundwater recharge to support summer base flow necessary for rearing of fish like Coho which are the most likely candidates for use of small urban streams.  Creeks are often urban waste spaces.  Bringing community into the creek for beneficial uses.  However eventually turning the creek into a funcitoning ecosystem is necessary if for no other reason to support the receiving waters downstream. 

After working in wetland restoration for many years,I became frustrated with the use of less functional(to humans)native plants over usefull(to humans)non natives and the outsoursing of human impacts to other ecosystems.I have spent the last 3 yrs working on an edible wetland project that will hopfully meet the ecological criteria that a native forest would provide.Analog gardening looks for usefull plants that mimic the function of plants to be replaced.Twinberry is replaced with high bush cranberry.Red elder is replaced with blue/black.Native crab apples are planted and grafted onto.Ive also bred the native choke cherry and apple with cultivars creating hybreds with more production.Shelbark hickorys,butternuts,swamp white oak hybreds,and hack berry are a few wetland tolerent trees.Black walnut too but not sure how that affects salmon.

Lots of good going on here sometime next week I will post up my first phase of this paper along with some of the unit two data

Mt. Goat. I would love to see that project. is there any chance you could email me more info?

Paul C.: thank you for pointing that out, in fact woody planting shading the stream would help vastly with temperature swings which is one of the major factors for salmon/steelhead health.

adunca, nope that one is new info to me thank you very much

Jonathan_Byron wrote:
The assessment we did was on a proposed widening of the road. Instinctive response is that roads were bad, put a brake on development by saying no to road expansion. But the congestion on the narrow road was to the point where air and noise pollution would be worse by choosing the 'no action' option ... all that stop and go reduces mileage and means more noxious chemicals from engine fluctuations. Diesel trucks are the worst - until they get to a steady speed, they spew lots of nasty particulates.

2009 models and newer diesel trucks have an exhaust filter that traps particulate matter and then burns it off at high temps. Beginning January 2010 all diesel fuel is now low sulfur diesel.

So older diesels may be spewing a lot of particulates, but it will soon be individual personal vehicles that are spewing more pollution.