After a hearty breakfast of muffins and coffee Saturday morning in the EMU Amphitheater, a group of about 55 University students set out for the Willamette River and a hard day’s work in an effort to save the salmon.
Students for Clean Willamette, a campaign run through OSPIRG, recruited students to join them in pulling blackberry roots out of the ground with shovels and rakes to restore the riverbank and the health of the local salmon population.
“I am glad to be here,” freshman Kathleen Peterson said. “I have been interested in working on the Willamette River project for a while.”
OSPIRG has been working with the Eugene Stream Team, an educational volunteer program, on salmon habitat restoration along the Willamette River.
“They bring the tools, and we bring the people,” OSPIRG member Jake DeAngelo said.
OSPIRG has sent about 15 volunteers to two of Eugene Stream Team’s restoration projects this fall and winter. The group also has signed a two-year contract with the team to do two projects a year as an effort to restore the riverbank area along the Willamette River near Autzen Footbridge.
“This is huge,” DeAngelo said. “This is the first restoration project we have organized on our own, and this project is something the University can work on for years. We did a lot of recruiting to get people here.”
Eugene Stream Team coordinator Lorna Baldwin said the Willamette River has spring chinook living in the river all year long, and in order for them to survive they need a healthy riparian area — the land along the riverbank.
“It’s critical to the health of salmon and other aquatic organisms,” she said. “It also helps maintain the water quality.”
Baldwin said volunteers uprooted blackberries because the non-native, invasive plant has an extensive root system that has pushed out native species. She said a diversity of plant species along the riverbank can provide food for salmon and a habitat for a wide range of creatures, while the blackberries prevent this healthy environment.
“It’s not that the blackberries necessarily harm the salmon,” she said. “It’s the fact that there is not a healthy riparian area there.” Once the blackberries are removed, members of Students for Clean Willamette and Eugene Stream Team will collect seeds from native species to plant at the location. They will also relocate native plants found along the river that are in danger because of looming development.
OSPIRG members from Lane Community College attended the event, and about 15 fraternity brothers from Delta Upsilon came to help as part of their chapter community service requirement.
“I know I am helping out and making a difference,” Delta Upsilon member Jim Finicle said.
OSPIRG also has been working on a petition signed by students and community members to encourage Oregon gubernatorial candidates to support OSPIRG’s platform for a clean Willamette River, OSPIRG member Erin Howes said.
OSPIRG hopes the newly elected governor will help end toxic emissions into the Willamette River, enforce the Clean Water Act and make polluters pay for their toxic emissions, Howes said.
To end the day’s work, the volunteers returned to the amphitheater in the afternoon for pizza and sandwiches.
“They had such a heavy turnout,” Baldwin said. “They have got a great start on this project.”