Restoration in jeopardy

Jenny Marder

Day after day, seven young men and women labor on hands and knees

pulling weeds, tending to freshly planted sagebrush and spreading

mulch along new trails to restore Surf City’s struggling nature

center to the thriving haven it once was.

They are members of the Orange County Conservation Corps, a

nonprofit organization that helps at-risk men and women ages 18 to 26

develop a work ethic and gain leadership skills and self-esteem while

completing their high school education.

The crew assigned to the Shipley Nature Center shows up four days

a week to pour time and energy into the sanctuary. The organization,

in turn, helps them back onto their feet.

This hard-working crew has been the backbone of a restoration

project at the center, but they are in jeopardy of being pulled from

the project when funding runs out in the next couple of weeks.

If the Friends of the Shipley Nature Center, the volunteer group

that took over running of the center when the city cut funding a year

ago, doesn’t come up with money, about $65,000, the center will lose

the Conservation Corps.

The volunteer group has been paying the corps sporadically and the

crew has come like clockwork. But Corps organizers say they can’t go

on without funds.

For two years, Conservation Corps members have been working at the

Shipley Nature Center for eight hours a day, four days a week and

attending classes in the evening.

“We were out there running amok before, and lots of people

wouldn’t hire us,” 19-year-old crew leader Casey Collins said.

Collins is the first female crew leader the 10-year-old

organization has had.

“This girl came here, and she was not shying away from any of the

work,” said Benny Ramirez, the crew’s supervisor. “She gains a lot of

respect from the guys because she’s pushing her weight.”

Ramirez, 34, is known for taking crews with low morale and turning

them around.

“We ask them to be punctual, be responsible, be dependable,” he

said. “We’re kind of hard on them because once they get out in the

real world, we want them to succeed. ... I tell the Corps members,

‘Sometimes you’ve got to go beyond yourself and do some good.’”

In the past two months, Collins has grown to approach her work

with pride.

At the east side of the center, she pointed proudly to a vacant

field.

“The whole field here was poison hemlock,” Collins said.

Someday soon, the field will be replaced with wildflowers, the

land will be cleared of all invasive plants and three vernal pools

will be built. Plans also call for the addition of 50,000 new plants.

The crew members have thrown themselves headfirst into the Shipley

Nature Center’s five-year restoration project, which involves

weeding, planting, removal of invasive plants and trail maintenance.

“The main goal of the Shipley Center is to restore,” Ramirez said.

“Work is never-ending. There’s always something to do.”

Community volunteers also show up to help with weeding and

planting on the first Saturday of every month. But it’s the

Conservation Corps crew that has put in the longest hours, said

Stephanie Pacheco, president of the Friends of the Shipley Nature

Center.

“They put in long days in the summer. It’s very, very hot,”

Pacheco said. “I couldn’t do it.”

Nearly four of the center’s 19 acres will be planted and restored

by December, said LouAnn Murray, Independent columnist and volunteer

at the center, who works with the crew for several hours every day.

Volunteers and crew members have already removed 150 tons of

material, much of which they recycle and reuse.

Losing the corps would be a disaster, Murray said.

“The public turns out to plant, but they’re not all that

enthusiastic about the heavy weeding,” she said. “The restoration has

to have demolition and maintenance. The corps is essential to that.

They’re doing the jobs that are not fun. They’re doing the jobs that

the public doesn’t want to do.”

And they’re doing it with passion and pride.

“A lot of people pour their heart out into this place,” Collins

said. “I plant trees, and I think about bringing my granddaughter 40

years from now and saying, I planted this tree when I was young.”