NATURAL PERSPECTIVES:Adventures in collecting cordgrass

Dozens of volunteers descended on Upper Newport Bay Ecological Reserve on a recent Saturday, intent on ripping out valuable cordgrass. I was among them, but Lou had other things to do that morning. What might have looked to a casual passer-by as vandalism was, in fact, part of an important project coordinated by Jeff Stoddard, a biologist with the Department of Fish and Game.

The restoration project at Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve has left acres of bare mud surface where, in a natural marsh, there would be a dense green cover of cordgrass. This salt marsh grass grows three to four feet tall and is prized because it is practically the only habitat for one of the scarcest resident birds in Orange County, the Light-footed Clapper Rail. Re-establishing cordgrass is a key goal of the Bolsa Chica restoration plan.

But you can’t buy cordgrass seed at Home Depot, or find it at native plant nurseries. It mostly grows from the roots of pre-existing plants. So if you want cordgrass in a place where there isn’t any, you’ve got to dig it up and transplant it.

Finding available cordgrass can be difficult. Fortunately, at Upper Newport Bay, the DFG has a massive dredging project to remove the sediment brought down San Diego Creek by urban runoff. Unfortunately, one small island of cordgrass is smack in the middle of the area that needs dredging. It will be destroyed.

So on Saturday, DFG took dozens of volunteers out to this island and had them spade up root balls of cordgrass and place them in plastic bags, ultimately to be toted to Bolsa Chica and planted.

An opportunity to slosh in the mud is something I can’t pass up, so there I was on that electric boat being shuttled out to the little island in the bay. The blue of the water, the green of the vegetation, the cries of the terns and the skimmers, all the things that make working in the marsh a joy — none of it was enough to make me forget that I was on a boat.

I don’t care how big it is (I once went for a ride on an aircraft carrier) or how small it is (I’ve been in canoes, too), being on a boat is the last thing in life I consider fun. Being surrounded by water is like being in prison. And I have to consciously avoid thinking about how deep the water is.

Do you know that at some points in the Pacific it is over six miles from the surface to the bottom? When you’re in a small boat, there is only a thin skin of aluminum between you and Davey Jones’ locker.

But in the interest of habitat restoration, I managed to force myself on board and sat there for 30 minutes as we motored out to the cordgrass. On board, too, were Phil Smith and Nancy Donovan, both long-time Bolsa Chica volunteers, and an assortment of folks from other organizations.

When we got to the island, I was surprised at how firm the soil surface was. Lou and I had helped with another cordgrass transplantation project many years ago. This had been at a different site in Newport Bay where the soil was mucky silt that you couldn’t really walk on without quickly sinking in up to mid-calf. Many a boot was lost that day, stuck forever in the mud.

In preparation for such muddy conditions, I brought along some rolls of plastic chicken wire fencing to put on the mud surface to provide support and traction for our feet. Fortunately, this mud was firm enough to stand on and the fencing wasn’t needed.

Our crew had filled about 50 plastic trash bags with cordgrass by the time the boat returned to pick us up and replace us with a relief crew. We loaded the small boat with the bags of cordgrass. Bags that wouldn’t fit were loaded into an even smaller dinghy that was tied to the side of the electric boat.

Off we cruised. For me, a boat ride that is headed for solid ground is more enjoyable than one heading out to sea. Within five minutes, however, disaster struck.

The dinghy had been loaded more heavily at its prow than its stern, and began to take on water. I should point out that our DFG pilot kept our speed at about 5 knots the entire trip.

I happened to glance over and noticed that the dinghy was nearly swamped. Before I even had a chance to shout a warning, its prow went under, and it filled completely with water. It pivoted on the rope that tied it to the boat and turned upside down, dumping our precious cordgrass to the bottom of Newport Bay.

I wondered optimistically if the cordgrass would float. Then I remembered the effort it took to spade up all that heavy mud around the root balls and how heavy those bags were as we loaded them. They were goners.

There is a happy ending to this story, however. Only a small part of our harvest had been in the dinghy. Most of it was safe and snug in the rear of the electric boat.

When we arrived back at the dock, more volunteers hauled our load to a makeshift nursery area where the cordgrass was transferred to plastic pots of potting soil. In another week or so, volunteers will go onto the mudflats at Bolsa Chica and plant this cordgrass. If it grows and spreads as planned, we will have vastly expanded the habitat for Clapper Rails and helped stabilize their precarious population.

For that, I would even go out on a boat again.