AfterWords

For information about opportunities below CONTACT:

Stef Frenzl, Marine Resource Steward of Snohomish County Surface Water Managment at Stephan.Frenzl@co.snohomish.wa.us

Available Student Intern Projects

Juvenile Dungeness Crab Habitat Study
Enhance existing knowledge of preferred juvenile Dungeness crab habitat along the shorelines in Snohomish County. This project is in partnership with Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife, Snohomish County MRC and WSU Beach Watchers. Data will be used to prioritize habitat types for restoration and/or protection.
Duties Include:
1) Assist with completing the study methodology
2) Garner approx 60 volunteers for juvenile crab habitat study for next field
season; coordinate overall volunteer effort.
3) Direct a team of volunteers to sample for juvenile Dungeness Crab at one study
site two times/month (other volunteers will each volunteer 1 day/month
between May and September).
4) Disseminate sampling data to Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife

Dungeness Crab Harvesting Education Project
Enhance existing education program to educate commercial and recreational crabbers on Dungeness Crab Harvesting Best Management Practices, and to change crabbers’ behavior by adopting these practices.
Duties Include:
1) Improve existing educational cards and derelict gear brochure
2) Work with local crabbing outfitters to develop a social-marketing campaign to
increase derelict fishing gear awareness and increase the number of
crabbers who use rot-cord on crab traps.
3) Garner and coordinate volunteers for rot cord education card distribution to
recreational crabbers. Develop and coordinate training workshop for
volunteers.
4) Develop survey to measure project success.

Rot Cord Degradation Study
Improve our understanding of the length of time rot cord degrades in the Puget Sound along the Snohomish County shoreline. Work with Washington Dept of Fish & Wildlife and Snohomish County MRC to develop replicate rot cord samples for monitoring. Data will be used to increase our understanding of the effectiveness of current rot-cord regulations.
Duties Include:
1) Modify existing rot-cord degradation study methodology as appropriate
2) Work with WDFW to coordinate data recording

BEACH Program
Contribute to Department of Ecology and Snohomish County MRC’s BEACH Program by monitoring marine water quality at public beaches.
Duties Include:
1) Follow marine water quality sampling protocol to collect samples at one-or-
two samples and send to a laboratory for analysis on Mondays from the
end of May to mid-September.

MRC Brochure
Create a new MRC brochure specifically for the MRC’s 2005-2007 Work Plan. Brochures will be distributed to general public at educational events.

Public Beach Vegetative Monitoring
Improve monitoring protocol at two shoreline restoration sites: Kayak Point and Picnic Point.
Duties Include:
1) Develop Photopoint monitoring program of entire shoreline
2) Develop plant monitoring program,
3) Coordinate with non-profit organizations and agencies to continue IVY Out removal
efforts at Picnic Point
4) Garner and coordinate volunteers for IVY Out efforts

Snohomish County Outfall Inventory
Conduct an outfall inventory along the Snohomish County shoreline.
Duties include:
1) Develop inventory protocol with Snohomish County Surface Water Management
2) Conduct inventory
3) Develop GIS data layer from inventory data

SCHOLARSHIPS AVAILABLE!!!

Come learn about AmeriCorps Students in Service Program!

First, take the pre-service orientation quiz at www.studentsinservice.org ! Click on the logo!

TODAY!!!! 3-4:30 p.m. in Snoqualmie Hall Room 212 (not 201, sorry for room change!)

You are cordially invited to attend today’s film premiere and/or Brown Bag Lecture.

Fisherman’s Terminal: A Film by B.J. Bullert
October 26, 2005 • 11:30 – 12:30, TUB 202

“Fisherman’s Terminal is a fascinating glimpse of a rare American scene, a compelling story of the struggle of those heroes of the nation – the fishermen of the Pacific coast – against the invasion of their lives and livelihood by upper-class America.” Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States. Runner up “Best Documentary,” Golden Space Needle Award, Seattle International Film Festival 2005.

Good Jobs Or Gentrification?: An Anthropology Of Class On The Seattle Waterfront
October 26, 2005 • 12:30-1:30 PM, TUB 202

PETER KNUTSON is a long time commercial fisherman and a Ph.D. anthropologist. He currently teaches at Seattle Central Community College. From June through October he fishes salmon and halibut in southeast Alaska. Over the last 30 years he has been involved in many struggles over environmental and social justice issues pertaining to fishing communities.

His organizing work has been profiled in B.J. Bullert’s 2005 award winning documentary Fishermen’s Terminal, Paul Loeb’s Soul of a Citizen, in the New York Times, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the Vancouver Sun, Rocky Mountain News, Seattle Times and other publications. He has published in Cultural Survival, Wise Traditions, Liberation, Academe, both Seattle dailies and other publications. He is the author of the audio book Hell No, We Won’t Go: Vietnam at Home.

The Brown Bag Lecture series, sponsored by the Office of Student Life, brings thought-provoking and inspirational speakers to campus. A committee of students, faculty, and staff select influential scholars, artists, activists, and community leaders with promise for sparking discussion and reflection in our community.

Selected lectures are recorded, archived in our library one week after the event, and broadcast on the college television station. For more details visit our home page: http://brownbag.edcc.edu.

You are invited to visit information tables from community partners offering volunteer opportunities related to today’s lecture and to comment online at http://www.edcc.edu/afterwords.

The views and opinions expressed in this series do not necessarily represent the opinions of Edmonds Community College, its administration, faculty, staff, or students or the Office of Student Life.

GUEST COMMENTARY:
All comment below are the words of Joyce LeCompte-Mastenbrook

JOYCE is actually MY JOY! jokes! We have a thing going… She teaches me about environment and I teach her about arts and culture. It is a great exchange.

Okay, she is the other AmeriCorps Service Learning Coordinator here at Edmonds Community College. She is located in the Career Action Center. If you are interested in her environmental project, please call her 425/640-1968 or email her joyce.mastenbrook@edcc.edu or visit our website at www.edcc.edu/americorps.

PEACE and enjoy her words!

Last Saturday, October 22, 2005, I spent the day with a group of volunteers from Edmonds Community College “Making a Difference” in Willis Tucker Park. The park is located in South Snohomish County, Washington, which, being centrally located between two major metropolitan areas along the I-5 corridor is one of the most rapidly developing areas in the state. MAD day followed on the heels of a week spent in Yakima at SERVES with 799 AmeriCorps comrades and a day long service-learning course construction workshop on Friday, at Seattle University.

The volunteer opportunity promoted by Snohomish County parks was billed as a day of “Plant Salvage and Trail Construction at Willis Tucker Park.” Our 14-member volunteer team was made up of a variety of individuals with different reasons for attending- some are full or part-time AmeriCorps volunteers, some enjoy volunteering and are members of our campus “Students of Service” (SOS) club, others were there to fulfill service-learning requirements in order to pass a class, and still others were family members of one of the previously mentioned groups. One trait that probably all of us shared was a sense of joy that the weather turned out to be sunny and dry!
Arriving at the site, we joined other volunteer groups in attendance, and were greeted by “Ranger Doug,” who led the day’s work party. After signing a waiver releasing the Parks Department from any liability for injuries (those of us from Edmonds had already signed a similar form releasing the college of liability), Ranger Doug handed out machetes and loppers to the work party, and explained that our mission was to clear a swath of land about six feet wide through the forest understory, roughly following a path of pink flagging tape that had been tied to trees along the way. When asked about the “plant salvage” piece of the puzzle, Ranger Doug explained that he had been notified late in the week that he was to lead the work party, and that no mention had been made of salvaging plants.

Since there were so many volunteers available to work (roughly 30 at any given time), and not enough machetes to go around, I suggested that we have some of the volunteers work on salvaging the plants that were in the path. Doug agreed, and so I quickly gave a lesson in how to successfully dig up sword ferns and Creeping Oregon Grape. Four teams of two each set about working on this task, and by the end of the day we had collected twenty or thirty large ferns and probably fifty healthy Oregon Grape plants.

While some of the volunteers focused on plant salvage, the majority set to work with the trail clearing project, which entailed cutting back low hanging vine maple, digging out salmonberry and trailing blackberry (these are so prolific I decided not to try to salvage them), then clearing the ground of roots and very loose duff. It was truly amazing to see how much a group of dedicated volunteers could accomplish in such a short time. By the end of the day, a ¼ mile loop trail had been created- all that remained for the Parks Department was the removal of large fallen logs obstructing the path, and then chipping the path with wood chips.

Although I was happy to observe the work that we accomplished as a group, and also the camaraderie that comes from a day of working in nature and towards a common goal, I was disappointed that the Parks Department did not take the opportunity to educate participants- to give individuals a better sense of “who are we, where are we, and why are we here.” I think this was most troubling because I feel that environmental education is so important if we are to attain a more sustainable future as a species. For instance, it would have been valuable to discuss the ecosystem that we were working in- pointing out important plant species and specific habitat niches, and discussing why these “wild” places are important for human health- what ecosystem services do they provide?

Observing some of the volunteers and their attitudes toward their work just reinforced in my mind the critical need for environmental education. Different people approach work in nature in different ways- and I think that this kind of “destructive” work especially fosters a kind of conquering mentality and behavior. I had to talk one volunteer (not from our team!) out of chopping down a beautiful vine maple that wasn’t even in the path- but he wanted to do it just because he felt he could. When I tried to discourage another volunteer from yanking sword ferns out of the path and tossing them into the bushes, he replied to me “why does it matter, they’re just weeds anyway.” What do you do with that in the moment, when the destruction momentum and mentality is already in full motion? At the same time, it is critically important that we understand how to work in and with nature, respectfully. It is in my mind one of the critical skills needed to bridge the divide between nature and culture, and bridging that divide is essential in the long-run to our survival as a species.

DOLORES HUERTA FOUNDATION

http://www.doloreshuerta.org/index.htm