In Bolsa Chica, rain falls mainly on the planters

Rain poured in buckets last Friday morning, falling at nearly 2 inches per hour for a short time. For once, Vic and I weren’t out in it, but 80 students from Edison High School weren’t so lucky. They had scheduled a big planting session at Bolsa Chica for Friday and Saturday, funded by a grant from Toyota Motor Sales. They got drenched.

The storm blew in Friday morning with a howling fury. The Bolsa Chica Conservancy’s building shook from rain that beat down with a frightening intensity. Saner minds asked if the planting was going to happen. All we can say is that sanity and habitat restoration often exhibit an apparent disconnect. The project was going forward, rain or shine. The kids and their supervisors got soaking wet and delightfully muddy, but they had fun. They also completed a great restoration project.

Laura Bandy and Grace Adams of the Bolsa Chica Conservancy helped Edison High School science teacher Greg Gardiner get the project under way. To fulfill the scientific component of the Toyota grant, they began early in the semester.

Grace, Laura and Greg lined up transects on Little Mesa at Warner Ave. and PCH for some scientific soil analysis. The students drilled into the soil with an auger and collected samples at the surface and at depths of 6 and 16 inches. They took the soil samples back to their lab at Edison High School to analyze for pH, nitrates, potassium and calcium. Students Andy Quinn and Michelle Fockler created graphs and tables with the data and presented their findings in a mini-symposium at the conservancy’s interpretive center last Friday. Vic and I found their results quite interesting.

The levels of nitrates were generally in the very low to low range, and potassium levels were in the low to medium range. This is just fine for the coastal sage scrub and upper salt marsh plants that grow there. If someone planned to grow crops on soil like that, they’d probably want to add fertilizer, but native plants do fine with relatively infertile soil.

There was a tendency for the nitrate and potassium levels to drop farther beneath the surface, which seemed reasonable. The most fertile soil tends to be at the surface, and subsoil tends to have fewer nutrients. But in a few spots, the levels were higher at the lower depths than at the surface. Since nearly all values fell within an expected range, we moved on to look at the calcium results.

Sandy soils have lower calcium levels than clays. There is no doubt that Little Mesa is mainly sand and sandy loam, with a bit of clay here and there. The calcium levels mostly were just what one would expect for this area, normal for sand and sandy loam. But there were some very high calcium readings in a couple of spots. We wondered if decomposed shells, of which there are plenty at Bolsa Chica, could account for the occasional very high readings.

The big shocker was the pH of the soil, which is a measurement of how acidic or basic the soil is. We would have expected a slightly alkaline soil in this area, but the findings showed just the opposite. The pH values were consistently 4.5, with the exception of one soil sample, which showed a reading of 7, which is neutral. The readings were so consistently acidic that we have to wonder at their validity. We will definitely be following up with our own analysis to double-check the soil acidity.

Soil analysis was part of the project that was funded by a Toyota Tapestry grant. These nationally awarded grants go to outstanding pre-collegiate science teachers such as Greg Gardiner and are intended to promote an innovative, hands-on approach to scientific education. The goal is to encourage students to pursue careers in science, including teaching science.

The other part of the project was a restoration component that included removing nonnative plants and planting 320 native plants. The students pulled up about three quarters of a ton of invasive saltbush prior to planting, which was a big boon to restoration. I joined them on Friday afternoon and on Saturday morning.

While digging, the students were thrilled to find two California legless lizards of the silvery subspecies. These cute little lizards seem to be doing well at Bolsa Chica. The new plants that the students installed will benefit the native insects upon which these lizards feed. The project will also benefit the deer mice and ground squirrels that live there, which in turn will benefit the gopher snakes, hawks and herons that forage on Little Mesa.

The conservancy and Edison High School project wasn’t the only planting being done last weekend. Kim Kolpin of the Bolsa Chica Stewards and a team of volunteers from Alcoa Fastenings Systems planted about 400 plants on Bolsa mesa on Saturday. It is a real thrill to see this long-term restoration project continue to move forward.

The wildlife as well as the public benefits from the efforts being made by the many people who are improving the environment at Bolsa Chica. But without generous corporate sponsorship, restoration would proceed much more slowly. Kudos to everyone involved.