Nature's Way

Sometimes a Creek
Needs Friends

By Lakin Khan

A creek by definition is small. A brook perhaps is smaller. A rivulet, of course, is smallest of all. But there are times when creeks ramp up in magnitude, rough, un-fordable, churning with the overabundance of rain and run-off. They jump from brook to stream to creek to small river. We have such a creek in our midst.

Running east to west, Copeland Creek bisects our campus into two unequal halves. Along the south bank runs the fire/bike road that, until lately, has defined the top of campus proper; between it and the creek is a path, not always continuous, which can be entered at many points from the road. To walk onto the path is to step into a parallel world, a short tunnel of alternate experience. A damp coolness brushes our cheeks, freshens lungs, a hush envelopes our senses, wraps around our ears; the sounds of campus, the rush of cars along the RP Expressway, fade away. Although well-shaded, so welcome during the summer months, a still light pervades, present even on the grey and moist days.

I enter the Nature Path at the official gateway, walking past the notice board with its list of the “good” and “bad” plants and turn east towards the Butterfly Garden and Facilities Yard. The creek is singing the more stately tones of a babbling brook today, unlike the first weekend in January when it was roaring with the torrent of overabundant rain. The high water mark still shows in spots along the north bank, a good six or seven feet at least above today’s busy but not threatening surface.

Six weeks ago, the creek spilled over the edge of the south bank and surged towards the campus lake, a small but raging river, lodging large branches and small broken trunks in the crotches of sturdier trees, stripping the reeds and blackberry canes of leaves, combing them over in one direction, like a bad toupee, and burying the ends in mud. As it receded, it left small dams everywhere of twigs, branches, reeds and debris. And mud. Lots and lots of thick dark silty mud.

As a winter creek, it runs hard and high during the rains. Copeland Creek begins on Sonoma Mountain within the Fairfield Osborn Preserve, flows down the slopes, then rolls in wide curves along the flats, scoots under Petaluma Hill road, swerves across campus and thence onward through Rohnert Park to its destination, Laguna de Santa Rosa and eventually to the Russian River. It is a creek that has suffered with the advent of the European settlers. The native willows, buckeyes and alders disappeared in service to grazing land, buildings and commercial development.

Further west from the campus, in response to potential flooding, the creek has been straightened and artificially banked, sealing the soil from the creek, separating it from the land. “We humans want to manage and control a creek, to direct its progress and protect our property but the creek wants to do its wild thing,” says professor David Stokes, “It’s difficult to establish a balance.”

With the trees went the shaded water so necessary for the steelhead that once populated the creek so thickly that, even into the early 1900’s, rumor has it, farmers spoke of pitchforking the fish out of the creek. But those were the good old days. For decades now, few, if any, steelhead have run the creek, seeking spring pools to spawn instead.

Fortunately, the creek has a support group: “The Friends of Copeland Creek Club,” is dedicated to restoring the riparian habitat in hopes of coaxing the steelhead to once again run the creek. The Club, which began in 1994 under the stewardship of emeritus professor Jean Falbo, is open to the community at large and organizes at least one work party a semester. Invasive species (Himalayan blackberry vines, periwinkle, poison hemlock) are ripped out, and native species, such as alders, willows, buckeyes, California blackberry are encouraged and replanted.

The advisors, Julie Bright and David Stokes, instructors in the ENSP and Biology Departments, work with students and volunteers in restoring the banks. “Lately,” said Bright, “small salmonids have been found to the east and to the west of campus, though, sadly, not here. Still, it’s progress.”

For those who want more information on The Friends of Copeland Creek Club or to volunteer with the work party this semester (traditionally held near Earth Day), visit http://www.students.sonoma.edu/clubs/focc/ or contact the advisors through the ENSP office, 4-2306. The Club will gather for its first planning meeting at noon on Wednesday, Feb. 8 in the ENSP office, Carson 18.

E-mail our amateur campus naturalist with any observations, stories or reactions you have about our shared environment with the natural world on campus. Khan is an administrative coordinator in the biology department and can be reached at lakin.khan@sonoma.edu.