Duwamish habitat project gives lift to both creek, volunteers

By Judy Chia Hui Hsu
Times Snohomish County Bureau

JAMES BRANAMAN / THE SEATTLE TIMES Yesterday's volunteer work crew at Hamm Creek included, from left, Rachel Ernst, Craig Davison and Tyler Sprague. They were among about 70 people helping plant native trees and shrubs.

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As planes flew through a clear sky and cars whizzed by on Highway 99, people of all ages attacked the soil with 6-foot shovels along the Duwamish River yesterday.

Jessica Hing, 13, was among some 70 volunteers with People for Puget Sound, a Seattle nonprofit, planting 1,000 trees and shrubs in the Hamm Creek area in South Seattle.

The area is home to bald eagles, ospreys, red-tailed hawks, river otters and coho salmon. By planting the trees, donated by the King Conservation District, the volunteers were building a healthy home for migrating birds and for invertebrates such as insects that the salmon eat.

Founded in 1991, People for Puget Sound oversees about half a dozen sites along the Duwamish, said Frana Milan, the organization's grants and contracts manager. Each year, a total of about 700 people volunteer at monthly large-group habitat-restoration events from March to October, she said.

Hing, an eighth-grader at Seattle's Eckstein Middle School, learned about the event on the Internet after deciding "to do something environmental" for a community-service requirement.

"It's hard, but I know I'm doing something that's good," she said.

	JAMES BRANAMAN / THE SEATTLE TIMES Colin Sackett, 6, adds a little weight to help his mother B.J. Cummings dig a hole to plant salmonberry at Hamm Creek.

The middle-schooler arrived midmorning with another first-timer, her mother. Anne Hing, 45, a pediatrician, said she had been unaware of such restoration projects and was glad that her daughter brought her along.

"I think it's amazing," Anne Hing said. "It's pretty thoughtful what folks are doing."

The program was also the first planting for Greg Hancock, 30, who volunteers as a steward with the Washington Native Plant Society.

"It's very satisfying work," said the computer consultant. "You can immediately see the results of your labor, which is fun."

But there is a drawback to these events, Hancock said.

"It is unfortunate because some of the most important work isn't this exciting or nearly as gratifying, so it doesn't tend to draw much of a crowd," he said. "These sites get kind of neglected after the planting is done."

He likes to leave the downtown area where he lives and works "to get some fresh air," he added.

"A lot of people who say they like the outdoors do very little to actually help sustain and maintain it," Hancock said. But "if people who come out here plant plants and feel vested in this kind of thing, they're more likely to come out and do the less-exciting work."

People for Puget Sound also runs a stewardship program in which about 20 volunteers monitor the sites to remove garbage and invasive species, such as tent caterpillars that eat tree foliage and decimate the area, Milan said. Group leaders hoped yesterday's event would inspire continued participation at this site.

Dan Carow, 36, a delivery driver whose house overlooks the Duwamish, volunteered to be a steward two hours into yesterday's event.

Carow, an admitted "tree-hugger," said he already makes regular visits to bird-watch along Hamm Creek.

"I'm used to driving out to the mountains to get close to nature," he said. "And a couple of years ago I came down to the river and was amazed at the diversity of wildlife that I could see, so I took a personal interest in it."

Sheila Hicks, 21, a member of AmeriCorps, said that although it was part of her job to attend this event, she was excited to be a participant. Hicks won yesterday's lunch-time trivia game about resource conservation and watersheds.

"It used to be this amazing river with little creeks around Seattle, and people should get informed about all of the health and environmental reasons to change it," she said.

"Give some money, give some time," Hicks added. "There's a lot to be done."

Judy Chia Hui Hsu: 425-745-7809 or jhsu@seattletimes.com

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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