Tree-planting frenzy for Earth Day

Sometime between breakfast and lunch today, in the span of just one hour, volunteers will try to plant 1,800 trees in sections of the vast green space running along the west bank of the Duwamish River.

The West Duwamish greenbelt, stretching 500 acres from the West Seattle Bridge to south of Westcrest Park, might not seem to need reforestation.

But the Nature Consortium wants to plant an average of 30 trees a minute to celebrate the 35th anniversary of Earth Day, and to promote public and private stewardship of the city's largest greenbelt.

"We are making a long-term commitment to this amazing urban forest, which borders the city's most polluted industrial corridor along the Duwamish," said West Seattle resident Nancy Whitlock, executive director of the non-profit Nature Consortium.

The project will be done simultaneously with one-hour tree plantings in Detroit and Atlanta. The Wood Promotion Network, which promotes the environmental benefits of using wood as a building material, is donating $2,000 for trees and $2,500 for maintenance, along with other costs.

The Seattle project will be done east of South Seattle Community College and to the northwest of where Highland Parkway Southwest intersects with West Marginal Way.

About 60 or 70 volunteers will participate, including Nature Consortium members and local students. The helpers include a dozen students of Van Bobbitt, horticulture instructor at South Seattle Community College.

"It will be beneficial to have more varieties of native plants for instructional purposes," he said.

Most of the trees to be planted are 6-inch grand fir plugs. The rest, all in the 6- to 8-foot range, are Douglas fir, Western red cedar and shore pine.

In the past two years, the Nature Consortium has added 725 trees to the greenbelt, which is owned by the city but receives less attention and resources than a park.

"This forest is easily overrun by things like Himalayan blackberries on the edges, Scotch broom, English ivy," Bobbitt said.

"We're hoping to give it more aspects of a Pacific Northwest forest. Having the year-round shade of the conifers will help shade out the weedy species."

Frith Maier, who lives south of South Seattle Community College and is Whitlock's neighbor, often runs on the ungroomed trails in the greenbelt.

"I used to frequent Discovery Park when I lived in North Seattle and volunteered with Friends of Discovery Park," said Maier, who runs an online-communications business in Renton. "It's important to me to have green spaces in the city, because there's not always time to go outside the city."

Other citizen efforts in the greenbelt include the campaign to preserve the Soundway property south of the college and the Riverview Trail Improvement Project, which aims to develop a trail from the Riverview playfield to the college.

"I know from my work at Discovery Park that it takes a tremendous amount of community activists to save green spaces in the city," Maier said. "I love the fact that there's an organization being the stewards of (the West Duwamish greenbelt).

"The city needs green spaces. And green spaces need advocates."

TO LEARN MORE

The tree planting today along the West Duwamish greenbelt is part of ongoing work parties and workshops organized by the Nature Consortium. For more information, go online to www.naturec.org.

CELEBRATE EARTH DAY

Below is a partial listing of events in the Seattle area:

Today

Earth Day Expo at Westlake Park sponsored by King County.

Events include: Performance by Mad Science, a group geared toward teaching children about science, 9:45 a.m. and 12:45 p.m. Meet Bert the Salmon, Puget Sound's environmental mascot, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Plus exhibits on "green" products and services, including recycled and salvaged materials.

For directions and information: www.dnr.metrokc.gov/dnrp/pa/earthday or contact Glynnis Vaughan at 206-296-1980. Saturday

Shoreline restoration led by People for Puget Sound at Herrings House Park on the Duwamish River in Seattle.

Kayak tours will be available during the day and a bird-banding project will take place in the morning. Restoration begins at 10 a.m. Performance by the Raging Grannies, activists who use jokes and songs to promote their causes, and speeches by elected officials begin at noon.

For directions and information: www.pugetsound.org.

Weed, water and care for rare native flowers in King County's Cougar Mountain Regional Wildland Park. Volunteers meet at 10 a.m. at the park's Red Town Trailhead parking lot.

Call Jenny Bauer of the Washington Native Plant Society, 425-836-3461, or Niki McBride at 206-296-4145.

For directions and information: www.metrokc.gov/parks/volunt/cougar.htm.

Sunday

People for Puget Sound staff and volunteers will be restoring shoreline at Hamm Creek along the Duwamish River. Restoration begins at 10 a.m.

Hamm Creek, 10000 West Marginal Place S., Seattle (same driveway as the Seattle City Light transfer station )

For directions and information: www.pugetsound.org

More headlines and info from Georgetown/South Park, West Seattle.