Environment

Students help restore North Bay refuge

Estuaries
Students from Valley View Elementary School in Richmond.

Students, teachers and volunteers performed restoration work in the North Bay's San Pablo Bay National Wildlife Refuge during "I Heart Estuaries" week.

Grace Sui’s 6th grade class from Valley View Elementary School in Richmond weeded invasive species and planted native plants along the levee to provide habitat for the federally-endangered salt marsh harvest mouse and Ridgway’s rail.

The work was part of Point Blue Conservation Science’s STRAW Program (Students and Teachers Restoring A Watershed), which is a collaborative network of students, teachers and volunteers leading communities around the bay to restore their ecosystems.

With funding from the San Francisco Bay Restoration Authority, which is staffed by the San Francisco Estuary Partnership and the California Coastal Conservancy, STRAW is restoring approximately 1.3 linear miles of critical shoreline habitat in the North Bay.

The project engages teachers, students and their families in actively improving the natural areas of their communities, increases the resilience of these marsh transition zones, and ensures long-term restoration and success through maintenance and monitoring.

The Restoration Authority was created by the California Legislature in 2008 to help fund restoration projects throughout the nine-county Bay Area. Funds come from Measure AA, the San Francisco Bay Clean Water, Pollution Prevention and Habitat Restoration Measure, which raises $25 million annually to fund restoration projects in the Bay. 

Submit your comment

In order to receive a reply to your comment, please provide an email address.

Plain text

  • No HTML tags allowed.
  • Web page addresses and email addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.