Students embrace local waterways through school
Each year 350 million gallons of used motor oil flows into storm
drains, waterways, and soil — 30 times more than that fouling
Alaskan shores in the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
Students embrace local waterways through school
Each year 350 million gallons of used motor oil flows into storm drains, waterways, and soil — 30 times more than that fouling Alaskan shores in the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
Local agencies are working together to help students understand that the rivers that pass through their communities provide more than pretty scenery. They provide life and by helping to preserve the health of waterways, students can start a lifetime of conservation awareness.
The rivers are important to the community because it’s indirectly where drinking water comes from, said Mandy Rose, director of San Benito County’s Integrated Waste Management Department. If the drinking water is contaminated, there isn’t anywhere else to go. A quart of motor oil can contaminate as much as 250,000 gallons of water. Rose says that not only does it hurt the aquatic life within the water, but the water itself to the point that we’re eventually drinking oil.
“During the floods of 1998, parts of tractors that washed down the San Benito River made it all the way out to the ocean. If you throw an oily rag into the river, it could end up in the Pajaro, or possibly even the Monterey Bay,” said Rose.
Aromas School previously supported stewardship on a patch of land along the Pajaro River, but for the past five or so years has pushed the project aside, according to fourth-fifth-grade teacher Erik Blomquist.
“The land is still preserved and we’d like to get back there, but there has been a big push to do better on tests so we have the students memorizing facts now instead,” said Blomquist.
Ten years or so ago, Blomquist says that the school worked with Granite Rock Corp., which owns the land next to the river and were allowed to work the land and teach the students about erosion and runoff and the effects of not protecting the river. He said that they convinced the quarry to re-plant the trees there and then the students helped re-release steelheads back into the river.
“Within the last five years the program has been harder to maintain,” said Blomquist. “Memorizing facts isn’t really science. We’d definitely like to get back there. Education is cyclical. Right now we’re focusing on tests, but sooner or later we’ll get back to the river.”
In the meantime, the students are learning about native plants and wetlands as natural filtration systems.
Elsewhere in San Benito County, the city of Hollister and San Benito County are hosting a riverbed cleanup day on Saturday, April 22. As they have for the past six years students from San Benito High School volunteered to help clean up the river.
The region has been hosting the river cleanup days for the past seven years. Mandy Rose is responsible for illegal dumping abatement and oversees she says that the students help once per year and the experience gives them the opportunity to see firsthand the kinds of damage pollution does to the river and why it’s not okay to throw trash into the riverbed.
Rose talks to the students about recycling and about how the pollution gets into the river. If they find an engine block, which seem to be in abundance, they might talk about how the leaking oil disperses into the water table and can get into the water that we consume. If they find a tire or a couch, they learn what can be recycled and what cannot.
“We’re kind ofa teaching the kids respect for the river,” said Rose.
Though the administrators at Anzar High School could not say specifically what they do in relation to the Pajaro River, Jennifer Colby, a lecturer in liberal studies at California State University Monterey Bay said that she helped Anzar obtain a NOAH Oceanic grant which helps them fund fieldtrips and work on the Pajaro River watershed.
Anzar is currently working on a demonstration watershed on campus.
“It’s interesting how they’re using their curriculum in economics and government classes. In Economics they look at the needs of the river and ask how do the wetlands being restored pertain to river? And in the government class they’re looking at the management of the river,” said Colby.
Mitch Huerta is one of the San Benito High teachers helping with the annual cleanup. He said that the event is valuable because it helps promote awareness of the river and gets kids active in the community.
The county provides student volunteers with transportation to different parts of the river and volunteers are given a three-hour window to pick up as much debris as they can.
“What I like is that this is a worthwhile project that does make a difference. Hopefully it has an impact on the students so they can see how they can impact the river and realize, ‘This is not where I get rid of my stove or tires,'” said Huerta. “For some this is their first time seeing the river bed.”
