- Elizabeth Larson
- Posted On
100 new oak trees planted at Anderson Marsh State Historic Park
CLEARLAKE, Calif. — In the years to come, Lake County residents should see dozens of newly planted valley oaks trees becoming part of the landscape at Anderson Marsh State Historic Park, their canopies growing broad and tall over a life span marked in centuries.
This week, State Parks staff planted 100 valley oak seedlings over three locations at Anderson Marsh State Historic Park.
It’s part of a collaborative project between State Parks, the city of Clearlake and Anderson Marsh Interpretive Association.
“We’re excited,” Ryan Martin, the natural resources manager for the State Parks division that includes Lake County, said of the project.
The 1-year-old valley oak seedlings were sourced locally from Native Nursery, owned by Larry Ray. Chad Mackie, a State Parks forestry aide, picked up the trees on Tuesday.
A team of five planted the trees in just two days, starting with 77 on Wednesday and the remaining trees on Thursday.
The trees were planted along Seigler Canyon Creek, across Highway 53 from the park’s ranch house, as well as on the North Flat area and in the grassland around the ranch house itself.
Planting 100 trees in two days was “quite a feat,” said Chaye VanKeuren, a State Parks environmental scientist.
The recent rains softened the ground and offered the right conditions for planting.
“We’ve been waiting for rain to really pull the trigger,” said VanKeuren.
Valley oaks, known by their scientific name as Quercus lobata, are native to California and the largest oaks to grow in North America.
The little trees, now about 1 foot tall, could someday reach 100 feet in height and could live as long as 600 years.
Anderson Marsh Interpretive Association Board member Henry Bornstein said State Parks staff settled on 100 trees as the number that would work best for the area.
“Planting trees is always a good idea,” said Bornstein.
VanKeuren said they placed the trees in areas where they thought they would do best, including areas along hillsides.
Rosie Blackburn, a State Parks environmental services intern who mapped where the trees would be located, helped plant the last of the trees on Thursday.
Blackburn said the trees were planted in clusters of six. She said they will be monitoring the seedlings and will base their watering schedule on conditions after winter.
Mackie said cages will be placed around the little trees before spring.
The Anderson Marsh Interpretive Association will eventually do the watering, weeding and maintenance for the seedlings.
Two educational panels about the trees, at North Flat and near the ranch house, eventually will be installed.
In June, the city announced that it would provide $21,000 to the planting project at Anderson Marsh from $100,000 in tree mitigation fees paid by the developer of the 102-unit Konocti Gardens, an affordable housing project being built by CSI Construction at 3930 Old Highway 53.
City Manager Alan Flora, who along with Mayor Dirk Slooten came out to check out the last of the plantings on Thursday, said the Konocti Gardens project removed close to 100 oak trees, some of them very large.
While the state has made affordable housing projects statutorily exempt from review under the California Environmental Quality Act, the city was able to require mitigation.
That’s because the city of Clearlake is the only jurisdiction in the county to have an oak tree protection ordinance that requires developers who cut down native oak trees to either replant trees of the same species or choose to pay a fee to fund replanting by the city.
That ordinance, which the Clearlake City Council passed in April 2008, established regulations to protect certain native trees — blue oak, valley oak, interior live oak, California black oak, canyon live oak and Oregon white oak, as well as any tree the Clearlake City Council designates as a “heritage tree” — in order to enhance the attractiveness and livability of the city
Koi tribal monitor Yolanda Sanchez was on the site on Thursday to make sure they didn’t dig into archaeological sites. Another tribal monitor, Fabian Romero, also had assisted with the project on Wednesday.
Bornstein said no one really knows if there were oaks in the planting areas before.
He said that the Army Corps of Engineers has done numerous projects along Cache Creek over the years, including straightening the creek and taking a foot off the Grigsby riffle. Even with those alterations, Bornstein said portions of the park, including along the Cache Creek trail, still flood during high water years.
There is the potential for more projects in the future, but nothing ready to go yet, said Flora. “We still have some funding but we haven’t identified anything.”
Flora said the city also is looking at possible conservation easements or acquiring property for future planting projects.
Correction: The article has been corrected to state that this was a collaborative project between State Parks, the city of Clearlake and Anderson Marsh Interpretive Association, not Anderson Marsh State Historic Park.
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