Meeting Mother Nature on Her Own Turf

Jan. 1, 2011

Settling North America was a tedious, drawn-out process that took centuries of hard work on mostly inhospitable land. Little wonder that the typical idea of nature was not a cuddly maternal figure but rather a monster to be tamed.

Now, when cyberspace has replaced outer space as the new frontier, it has become fashionable to coddle Mother Nature as if she were some old lady in her dotage. We say all the right things about her, and occasionally we visit and say how good she looks. But, in fact, she has become just one more obstacle to overcome in our quest for goods. Driving on the highways of the United States, one is struck by the potential beauty of nature but astounded by the poor taste given to her appearance. She is arrayed in billboards, pockmarked by shopping malls, and generally rendered inelegant by detritus.

Face it: Mother Nature ain’t what she used to be. On the other hand, she isn’t yet dead, and there still exists a host of individuals who are committed to preserving what hasn’t been entirely lost to greed and carelessness.

Plant Native or Don’t Plant, Says Forest Service
The Olympic National Forest is located on the Olympic Peninsula in the northwest corner of Washington state. The Olympic Peninsula ranges from temperate rain forest to rugged mountain terrain, large lowland lakes, cascading rivers, and saltwater beaches.

John Zapel, president and owner of Westek Forest Ltd. in Olympia, WA, recently was part of a project to  decommission a 2-mile derelict logging road in the Wynoochee Ranger District of Washington’s Olympic National Forest. Westek’s customer base runs the gamut of municipal, state, and federal agencies, and Zapel is a Certified Sediment and Erosion Control Lead responsible for ensuring compliance with these entities.

The company, which specializes in complex habitat restoration projects, has been in business for more than 25 years. “We work within the wetlands and the perimeters of streambed channels,” Zapel says. “It’s a challenging field, and there are only a handful of companies that actually make a living at this. We’re involved in projects like taking out dams, building bypass channels for fish, and developing complex dewatering systems.”

Zapel says the logging road, probably constructed between 1965 and 1970, had been used for logging access and had outlived its purpose. “The federal timber sale program has vanished, and the Forest Service cannot afford to maintain these defunct logging roads. The terrain serviced by this road is so steep that it wasn’t practical to do second-growth thinning. There were also erosion issues. The runoff from these high-country roads poses a risk to aquatic habitats and ultimately is destroying the salmon beds.”

Working on the road, designated 229460, posed some challenges. “It crossed some very steep terrain with up to 70% slopes,” Zapel says, “so our main concern was safety. It was a 14-foot-wide road, and we were using a 115,000-pound ZX450 Hitachi excavator. There was debris from slides and old-growth timber lying in the roadway. Some of those fallen trees were 7 to 8 feet in diameter and up to 80 feet long. The road was so steep and narrow that sometimes you would swing around and hit a rock wall. It was 600 feet to the bottom of the valley, mostly straight down.”

Spotters with handheld communication devices were stationed in various locations around the area to warn workers of falling debris. “A derelict snag could cut loose and knock over an excavator,” Zapel says. “It was spooky, really.”

Decommissioning the road involved reseeding the area in order to prevent further erosion. Instead of traditional hydroseeding with a straw cover, Westek used Woodstraw, provided by Forest Concepts LLC of Auburn, WA. “In this area, our customers require a certified weed-free product,” Zapel says. “It’s hard to find. Even wheat and oat straw that are claimed to be weed-free still contain some seeds. We’ve been using Woodstraw for the past five years. It works better and it lasts longer than organic straw, which is only good for two to three months. We put some Woodstraw down four or more years ago, and it’s still not rotted. It’s heavier and more stable.”

Woodstraw can be applied with a straw blower or, if the bales are small enough, by hand. But Westek has its own method. “We use an excavator,” Zapel says. “We pre-stage 600-pound bales along the route. Then we split the bale with the bucket of the excavator and “˜shake’ it from 10 to 15 feet in the air. It flutters down in an even application. It’s efficient and fast and has reduced the manpower from four workers to one.”

Seven or eight ordinary straw bales are the equivalent of one big bale of Woodstraw, Zapel notes. “You get the same coverage but more value per unit cost. And there are tons of advantages: It is easy to apply and has tenacity. We’ve never had a recall.”

Adam Haspiel, fisheries biologist for Mount St. Helens National Monument in Amboy, WA, also has used Woodstraw for a logging road decommissioning project in Washington’s Gifford Pinchot National Forest. “Some of these roads are over 50 years old,” Haspiel says. “They have been updated over time; this one was last worked on in 1985. The life of a culvert is about 20 years, and this road had deteriorated because there is limited money for maintenance.”

The goal, after removing a road and its drainage systems, is to let nature take its course, Haspiel explains. But federal regulations mandate a weed-free cover for the native seed mix. “Even weed-free straw has some residual seed; it’s a real problem. Weeds like Scotch broom and spotted knapweed will prevent the growth of native trees such as Douglas fir and hemlock.”

Haspiel started using Woodstraw after Forest Concepts implemented a test plot, spreading the wood mulch instead of straw. “Right after that we had a storm that dumped 6 inches of rain in three or four days, and the area remained stable,” Haspiel says.

Woodstraw costs about twice as much as non-certified straw, Haspiel says, but its advantages go beyond meeting federal regulations. “It’s heavier duty and will last up to four winters while the native seed is being established. It won’t blow off in a windstorm.”

As the owner of Rocky Mountain Reclamation in Laramie, WY, Ron Schreibeis has provided revegetation services in 16 states, from South Carolina on the East Coast to the state of Washington on the West Coast, with the majority of the company’s time in Wyoming, Colorado, Montana, Arizona, South Dakota, and New Mexico. The company provides services to coal and hard rock mines, highway projects, airports, subdivisions, and private ranches, as well as the US Forest Service, the National Park Service, and other government agencies and private individuals. With a B.S. degree in economics and an M.S. degree in range management from the University of Wyoming, Schreibeis also has nearly 40 years of practical experience.

Schreibeis says that providing revegetation services on most projects generally requires adhering to specific guidelines. For instance, the National Park Service provides its own seed, collected locally, and generally does not allow drill seeding because the drill rows don’t look natural. “Instead, we mechanically broadcast, hydroseed, or utilize our special drop seeder that does not leave drill rows.”

The recommended seeding method in semi-arid areas is a rangeland drill, Schreibeis says. “It is by far the best method for accurately metering and applying seed to the correct depths and is capable of planting some seed to one depth and other seed to a different depth, all the while properly metering the correct amount of seed per acre for each species. Controlling seeding depths allows us to minimize the application rate to a given number of seeds per square foot.  For broadcast and hydroseeded projects in the National Parks, or for projects with very steep slopes, we often double the drill application rate. We cannot control seed planting depth as accurately using current cover techniques following broadcasting as can be accomplished with our rangeland drills and their special design for seed placement. Broadcasting randomly places the seed on the soil surface. For best results in our dry climate, the seed needs to be covered.  Covering methods like raking and chain-dragging place most of the seed in the soil, but this is a random process and seeds end up at random depths. Seed that should be barely planted under the soil surface might end up a half-inch deep and, for some seed, this means it will not survive.”

To protect broadcast-seeded areas, some type of erosion control material is needed to minimize the risk of potential soil loss and damage to both the onsite and offsite environments.  “Generally, we use native hay mulch or a small-grain straw, but on some projects other materials are specified, all requiring specialized equipment,” Schreibeis notes. “For example, we have a patented one-of-a-kind bark blower for applying wood bark used on our National Park Service projects.”

For the past seven years, Rocky Mountain Reclamation has been providing revegetation and erosion control services for the Tyrone Copper Mine in Southwest New Mexico, near Silver City. In an area where soils are being disturbed during mining, revegetation is an ongoing process and involves working in some tough terrain. “The disturbed areas at the mine often have very steep slopes, usually three-to-one and steeper, with amazing amounts of rock, from baseball-size rocks to engine-size and larger boulders,” Schreibeis says.

The reclamation process involves regrading, reshaping, and applying topsoil or some type of plant-growth media to an area that, regardless of its disturbance, is still home to a variety of wildlife. “The wildlife never really seem to leave, or at least not for long,” Schreibeis says. “The animals seem to adjust to the new habitat.  When we revegetate, these areas on the mines become a haven for them. This becomes a problem for the mine because a small herd of deer can destroy thousands of young shrubs and tender plants as they are establishing on the revegetated areas in just a couple of nights.”

Despite grazing wildlife, the work of reclamation continues. “We come in and prepare the seed bed with several different implements, such as a ripper, scarifier, disc, roller harrow, heavy-duty deep disc, or chisel,” Schreibeis says. “The proper seedbed preparation equipment just depends on the soil conditions, slope gradients, compaction, and other aspects of the specific site.”

Schreibeis notes that it’s important to buy quality seeds from a dependable supplier. “We use Granite Seed as our primary seed supplier because we want our clients to have the best quality seed possible and the best adapted varieties for each specific project.”

Once the soil is prepared, Schreibeis uses Rocky Mountain Reclamation’s specialized rangeland drill. “We plant seed, using two or three seed placement systems on the drill, placing the seed at different depths utilizing different application and coverage techniques to maximize germination and plant establishment, which then provides long-term soil stabilization.”

If the area is left alone at that point, it is vulnerable to erosion, Schreibeis says. “A half-hour of rain and wind can destroy it all. To keep the seed from washing or blowing away, we always recommend some type of erosion control product. We have found over the years that generally the most cost effective method is to apply native grass-hay mulch that has been inspected and certified as “˜noxious-weed free.’ We apply this mulch with one of our many specialized mulchers, generally at 2 tons per acre.”

For mulching, Schreibeis prefers a large round-bale spread mulcher. “It holds up better in the rough, rocky conditions we work in,” he explains. “Other contractors might prefer a square-bale mulcher; it’s a matter of preference.”

Finally, the mulch is crimped to withstand wind and precipitation. “We run our specially designed crimper implement that has 20- to 22-inch round coulters lined up to travel parallel to the direction of the tractor to “˜crimp in’ the mulch,” Schreibis says. “It presses down and pushes the mulch 3 to 4 inches below the soil so that the mulch sticks up like stubble. Between the coulters, a 6- to 8-inch-wide area of mulch remains lying flat on the surface, adding further soil protection. The crimping holds the mulch in place, and this whole process protects the soil from wind and water erosion and helps minimize the potential for sheet erosion, rilling, gullying, and degradation to the adjacent offsite environment.”

Schreibeis cites an example to prove his point. “We had just finished one slope on a large tailings pile and were about to move to another one when one of those summer monsoon rains hit the area. The next day, when we assessed the damages, the water had cut across and washed significant amounts of sediment onto a county road; it had cut deep gullies on the unmulched slope. It cost the mine thousands of dollars to repair this slop. Our slope was just 100 yards away and the mine didn’t have to touch it.”

Sterile Soils Spark Innovation in Volcanic Territory
Sunriver, OR, is a 3,300-acre private planned resort community located at the base of the Cascade Range. Mount Bachelor Ski Resort, about 20 minutes away, is located on the northern face of Mount Bachelor, a stratovolcano built atop a volcanic shield in the Cascade Range.

David Steinfeld, revegetation specialist and soil scientist for the USDA Forest Service Restoration Services Team in Oregon, worked on a Federal Highway Administration project that connected the two resorts. “It is a high-use road in ski season and was not up to standards for the use it received,” Steinfeld says. His role was to revegetate the roadsides with plant species native to the area.

Crews widened the road from 24 to 30 feet, making it safer for cyclists. “This summer, it seemed like there were more bikes than cars,” notes Steinfeld. About 11 miles of the road was improved with the addition of paved shoulders, pavement markings, and relocated chain-up areas.

The climate itself posed some challenges. “It’s a semi-arid area with about 12 to 14 inches of precipitation a year at the lower elevations,” Steinfeld explains. “The 13.4-mile road starts out at 4,200 feet and rises to a 6,000-foot elevation at the end. It goes through a snow zone. The soils are formed from volcanic ash, a pumice soil that dries out quickly. This is all recently active volcanic area.”

The ideal situation in any reclamation project is to reuse the existing topsoil, but that is not always possible. “We ran out of topsoil on this project,” Steinfeld says.

Stabilizing the soil was difficult. “It was highly disturbed soil, bare and sterile; we were at ground zero. Our Region 6 Restoration Services Team tries to use a holistic approach. When we can’t use salvaged topsoil, we try to reconstruct a soil. Microorganisms and plants build soil; carbon is the key. In the last five years, we have started making mulch by grinding up byway slash that ordinarily would be burned, or we buy compost and add mycorrhizae if the soil is sterile. We try to get carbon back on the site.”

For this project, Steinfeld’s team sowed the bare slopes with seeds from locally collected native seed sources. The seeds were coated with mycorrhizae, then covered with an inch of mulch created from right-of-way slash. “This was one of the first projects where we tried this,” he says. The mulch not only added carbon to the slopes but also helped conserve moisture around the seeds during seed germination reduced surface evaporation once the plants had become established.

“It’s cheaper to apply fertilizer during seeding, but there are no plants yet to absorb it, and it just leaches through the soil. Instead, we mix a tiny bit of fertilizer with the seed and mycorrhizae and come back one to three years later and add the bulk of the slow-release fertilizer at that time,” Steinfeld says.

The road project occurred over a two-year period. “The first year we hand-seeded, but the second year we used hydromulcher,” Steinfeld says. “Four years later, 95% of the species that have come up are from the native seeds that we sowed. There were no weeds. It’s local genetics.”

Creativity played a role in stabilization as well. “We wanted to work with loose surface soils, so we backed off on track-walking. Normally road projects require a tractor to travel up and down slopes and compact the soil. It leaves cleat marks for seeds to catch in and germinate. But it also reduces air space and infiltration rates, which leads to runoff. The Federal Highway Administration in Oregon is progressive and requires that we leave 12 to 18 inches of loose soil on the surface. So we started using the bucket of an excavator to press the soil. With an angle iron welded to the bucket, we can still create cleat marks while leaving the soil loose. By combining the 1-inch mulch with a loose soil, we increased infiltration rates and reduced runoff while creating a good growing site for plants.”

Steinfeld says there is no “magic bullet” in erosion control. “There are a lot of treatments, but, like a doctor, you’ve got to diagnose the whole body and apply the treatments that make sense.”

When Nature Needs Some Help
In recent years, natural-gas exploration and extraction has been rapidly developing. Construction of well pads, access roads, and pipeline rights of way disturb vegetation and, consequently, wildlife habitat. The Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission requires that natural-gas pads on private and state land be reclaimed within three to 12 months after drilling operations have ceased.

Drew Patterson is project manager for Metcalf Excavation in Parachute, CO. On Sept. 1, 2010, he began a reclamation project 7 miles north of Parachute at the base of the Roan Plateau. “This is an interim reclamation project,” Patterson explains.

The first stage of the 6-acre project involved dirt works. “We used dozers to push back the pad and erected earth berms to hide the tanks and other manmade equipment-condensate tanks, wellheads, and separators-so they couldn’t be seen from the main road.”

Although he uses a drill seeder on most projects, Patterson says he resorted to hydroseeding in this case. “The slopes were one-and-a-half to one, and we couldn’t get a tractor up.”

Because the soil was largely clay, with some loam, it was necessary to add organic materials when revegetating. “It was bad soil, poor in organics, with high salinity and higher pH, and it was low in phosphorous. We used Sustane 4-6-4 as our main amendment, combined with a small amount of Gro-Power 5-3-1. We generally use Gro-Power, but we decided to give Sustane a try in this particular situation because of its slow-release qualities. After nearly a year, there are still traces of nitrogen being released into the soil. We use mychorrizae on all our projects if the client approves it.  It gets good results with high-saline soil.”

The mulch chosen for this project was 100% wood fiber, Patterson says. “We spread 2,500 pounds of Central Fiber 100% wood mulch per acre. We have had great success in this area combining the mulch with Earthguard soil stabilizer. Earthguard is a polyacrylamide, which binds the soil as its primary method of controlling erosion instead of mechanically creating a crust of mulch that new stands of grass have difficulty penetrating.”

With a severe climate, high elevations, and clay soil, a full stand of vegetation is not expected for three to four years, Patterson says. “When you get 70% coverage in two years, it’s great,” he adds.

Castle Rock, CO, located in a semi-arid zone between Denver to the north and Colorado springs to the south, has temperatures that can range from 99°F to -35°F. “Colorado is a high desert state with an average rainfall of 14 inches a year,” says Ron Dean, business developer and estimator for Down to Earth Compliance (DETC) of Denver. “Usually, native grasses take three to five years to develop an adequate stand.”

In 2009, DETC was called in to remodel and amend five sediment ponds covering 5 acres in the Red Hawk new home development in Castle Rock. The area had been seeded with natural grasses a few years back, but the city wanted more coverage. The ponds also lacked emergency and maintenance outlets, and the state had stepped in. There were no signs of erosion on the mostly three-to-one slopes, according to Dean, but the city wanted further stabilization.

“The city was calling for the developer to tear out the erosion blankets, retill with compost, reseed, and reblanket,” Dean says. “The developer called us, and we suggested that the area be left intact and overseeded. We spread Biosol [provided by Rocky Mountain Bio Products of Denver], then mychorizzae and humate. Initially, we intended to use a slit seeder to penetrate the soil and blanket, but that was too difficult because the blanket tore. Rather than distribute the seed with a hydroseeding machine, we sprayed the seed with the amendments on top of the existing blanket and let nature take its course.”

The method proved successful, Dean says. “We started with just a little grass, and in under a year’s time we had a substantial increase in the existing grass as well as additional seeds. In exactly one year from the date we did the amendment, the permit was granted the developer and the bond was repaid. That money had been tied up for three or four years.”

Let the Sun Shine In, Says California Agrifarmer
Kimberly True is project manager and landscape architect for Suding Design Landscape Architects in Santa Barbara, CA. In 2008, she and Medardo Canales, president and owner of Ojai, CA-based Nature Gro, became major players in the startlingly innovative Limoneira Solar Project, located in Santa Paula, just north of the Santa Clara River on an alluvial fan in Ventura County.

The project, which began in February and was complete in October of that year, used ecological design principles to create a regenerative landscape that mimics local ecosystem functions to reduce resource inputs such as water and fertilizer. “It is the first privately funded project to receive LEED [the US Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design] Gold Certification in Ventura County,” True says. “This is the first solar project using California native plants as a vegetative understory for a solar array.”

The Limoneira Co., founded in 1893, is one of the country’s largest avocado and lemon growers, with more than 7,000 acres in agricultural production. “The company wanted to fix its high energy costs to stay competitive in the global marketplace,” True says.

The result of creative design and careful planning and implementation, a 5.5-acre, 1-MW solar facility is now used to power the adjacent cold storage area and packinghouse. “The facility consists of a solar array and a visitor’s center with a vegetated roof,” True says. Planted with annual and perennial native grasses, the site blends with the surrounding natural landscape.

The roof, designed to be a semi-intensive green roof system with a soil depth between 5 and 8 inches, will typically reduce stormwater runoff by 85%, according to True. In addition to a lightweight planting mix designed specifically for rooftops, a lightweight float rock weaves through the design. “It forms a visual river and also protects the membrane at the sides of the roof. It facilitates drainage and provides a place for maintenance workers to walk on the roof.”

The roof system consists of a rubberized membrane overlaid with a plastic egg-crate material.  “The pin-hole, perforated cups are filled with a perlite-like material to hold water, and the space below allows the roots to get oxygen,” True explains. “Landscape fabric is overlaid to keep the soil out of the cups.”

Before the “river” of floatrock was installed, the soil was separated from the perimeter rock by geotextile fabric. “The fabric maintains drainage ability and deters root growth into the perimeter of the roof membrane,” True says. A biodegradable erosion control blanket, specified to last 18 to 24 months, protected the soil while the plants were established.

“The growing environment for a rooftop is more challenging than on the ground,” True says. “Plants must withstand low amounts of water, more wind, and a shallow soil profile. We arranged the plants by community, from coastal to mountain environments, including coastal strand, coastal sage scrub, chaparral, and oak woodland.”

The solar array on the ground also has some unusual aspects. Most solar arrays rest on gravel and require herbicides to keep down weeds, True says. “The gravel and panels also increase local temperatures. But the non-irrigated native plant mix used here keeps the environment cooler than a gravel area and does not require herbicide.”

The solar array was designed with a low profile to decrease wind shear on the 22-inch-high panels. “We also chose plants under 18 inches tall at maturity so they would not block the panels and decrease power efficiency,” True says. “We were careful to combine species from the legume family to pair with the grasses, since legumes fix atmospheric nitrogen into the soil. We chose plants for shade and sun and seeded them throughout the site to allow plants to germinate and establish in their preferred microclimate. And we used a mix of annual and perennial grasses to provide instant and long-term cover.”

Drilling was the preferred installation method on the project. “Nature Gro has adapted a farm seeding tractor to take four different sizes of native seeds,” True says. “The drilling rig places the seeds [mixed with Biosol Mix fertilizer from S&S Seeds, AM 120 mychorrizal fungi, and Tri-C humate] just under the soil. Due to time constraints, since Ventura County had never processed a solar array permit, there was no time for a grow-kill cycle.”

Canales explains that the seeding was done in a two-step process. “We drilled the seed with a Truax Grain Drill, cross-seeding in two directions for unified and proper coverage,” he says. “Then we came in with our hydromulch application. We used virgin wood fiber and Ecology Controls M-Binder from S&S Seeds. It’s made from the husk of a seed; it’s all-natural material. This mulch retains moisture, and that was important because this was a non-irrigated area. It worked really well.”

Once the area was seeded and hydromulched, in less than two days time, according to Canales, the solar panel pedestals and frames were placed on the site by students from nearby Thomas Aquinas College. “Those students did a lot of work,” Canales notes. “It was a tedious process.”

“Just after the installation in September, the soil was still bare from drilling,” True says. “After the first solid rains in December, there was germination under and between the solar panels. By February 2009, we could see tall agricultural weeds and robust native plant growth between and under the panels. Agricultural weeds were removed by hand prior to setting seed that first year. When we visited the site in January 2010, we saw few weeds, but native grasses and wildflowers were vigorous and dense under and between the panels. Seeds had also spread to the perimeter.”

To reduce water use, the array has no irrigation system. To maintain the site, miniature Babydoll sheep were brought in to graze on the grass and wildflowers. “The sheep are small enough to fit under the panels, and their grazing makes sure the panels are not blocked,” True says. “Limoneira is experimenting with grazing cycles and is currently keeping the sheep in the array full-time to eliminate any exotic plants that might enter. In this way, natural cycles of rainfall and grazing reduce inputs to the site and create a more sustainable natural system.”

The seven English sheep are cared for through a partnership between Limoneira and Future Farmers of America.

Limoneira, with 117 years in farming, is now offering its Citrus Ranch Tour, on which visitors can look back into farming history with period ranch photos and original packing fruit-crate art, then go modern with a tour of the “solar orchard” that powers the company’s storage facilities before stopping by the 10-acre recycling yard, where green materials are composted naturally into mulch to be later distributed in the orchards.

And so it ends. Or perhaps it is a beginning, in which we learn to appreciate old Mother Nature, treating her a bit better and reaping the rewards.

About the Author

Mary Ellen Hare

Mary Ellen Hare is a frequent contributor to Forester Media publications.