A Workday in the Park

Oct 27 18:54 UTC 1995

Last Saturday afternoon I dropped in on an Ann Arbor Parks & Recreation
Department Workday at Bandemer Park.  Bandemer Park is along the west
shore of Argo Pond, almost under the M-14 Bridge.  It's a park just under
development.  It's not exactly a pristine piece of land.  It was originally
a stockyard, and then was owned by the Transportation Department who used
it as a dumping ground for various construction rubble.  The worst of the
rubble has now been buried onsight, and development as a park is under
way:  roads, parking, picnic tables, trails, foot bridges.

I'm on a mailing list for these things that I got on through the Sierra
Club, but it turned out that every other volunteer there was from a group
called "PVC" or "Professional Volunteer Corp" (no, none of them were able
to explain the name).  It's a group for single adults that does volunteer
work of various sorts around town.  Seemed a very nice set of people.
There were also several Parks & Recreation people there to oversee and
direct the effort.

The focus of this workday was trail-cutting and invasive species removal.
Several short loop trails had been marked out with flags, and someone had
been through with a chain saw to cut the larger trees in the way.  Our
job was to go through cutting the smaller stuff with long-handled loppers,
drag all the cut stuff out to the roadside, and stack it.  The more hazardous
parts of the job (cutting with chain saws, running the cut stuff through
chippers, painting herbacide on the stumps of cut plants) are left to
parks people.  What we did was fairly light work (though definately exercise)
and required no noticable skills.

I really enjoyed the afternoon.  It's nice to work with a set of friendly
folks on a useful job.  Munchies were provided.

In addition to trail cutting, we'd go after any invasives we happened to
come across.  In fact, nearly all of the trees and shrubs cut for the
trail were invasives too.  The main invasive species here are buckthorn
and honeysuckle.  Both are rather pretty plants, still green late in the
fall, with lots and lots of pretty berries on them.  They were imported
as decorative yard plants, and because of their massive seed production,
soon spread out into the wild areas, especially rather disturbed and stressed
wild areas like Bandemer.  In Bandemer you can see whole forests of buck-
thorn and honeysuckle where virtually nothing else grows.  Normally the
native species would do better against the invasives, since the are more
tolerant of fires and of the annual flooding of the river, but neither of
those things happens any more.  So instead we see these few imported species
eradicating everything else.

So the idea is to try to undo some of the mess made by human intervention
with further human intervention.  I'm afraid that's the story in conservation
these days, and we aren't likely to get away from it soon.  So the policy
is to cut out invasives, plant natives, do controlled burns, and try to
re-establish a richer, native ecosystem.

I had a nice chance to see a contrast to the badly degraded wilderness at
Bandemer this sunday when I joined the Sierra Club for a botanist guided
tour of a little patch of woods along the shore of the Huron in the Lower
Huron Metro park.  There are in excess of 54 species of woody plants growing
there, with very, very few invasives.  There are more species of plant in that
little plot of land than in all of northern and western Europe.  There are lots
of gorgeious old trees that are among the biggest in the state, centuries old.
I've never been a big plant freek, but that was a fascinating tour.  The
contrast between this and Bandemer really helped me understand what is meant
by a "degraded forest" and by "loss of biodiversity."

Incidentally, the Metro-Parks are planning to put a golf course into that
bit of woods.

Anyway, I really liked the work day at Bandemer.  There is another one
tomorrow (October 28) at Bird Hills from 10:00 to 1:00 (oops, conflict with
Grexwalk) and on Sunday (Oct 29) from 12:00 to 3:00 (oops, conflict with
Grexpedition).  The first meets at the Barton Dam parking lot and the
second at the Newport Road parking lot.  Both of these will be mainly Sierra
Club things, since the Sierra Club has adopted Bird Hills.  You can call
Triona Mortell at the Leslie Science Center (996-3266) if you want to get
more info on Workdays, or get on their mailing list.

Most of the workdays are backed by some volunteer group or another, and the
Parks Department is encouraging groups to adopt parks.  Probably they want
to have some group organize getting volunteers there, so there will be some
one to work with the parks people who come out there on the weekends.  But
they don't mind at all if people who aren't with the group show up.

I was wondering if there would be enough interest among Grex users to think
about doing some workdays, or even adopting a park (maybe even jointly with
Arbornet and HVCN).  I intend to do more of these myself.

response 2 of 25:

Oct 29 02:26 UTC 1995

I missed the Grexwalk to go cut a trail in Bird Hills.  It'll be connection
the Barton Park parking lot up into Bird Hills so folks won't be walking
along Bird Rd (not that Bird Rd is such a high traffic street).  This bit
of land was apparently last used as a police shooting range.  There are
some cool old falling down buildings back in there buried in all the
buckthorns.  One is an old pumphouse -- a little brick blockhouse crowned
with a steel girder tower with the remains of a big huge electric pump
inside.  It'll be demolished (attractive nuisance, they say).  The electric
pump is probably from the thirties, but someone claimed that there had
probably been a steam pump in there before.  Ann Arbor used to get most
of it's water from wells in that area.

Rather few people showed up for the workday.  The Parks people very nearly
outnumbered the volunteers.  Got a lot done anyway though.

They always spend the last half hour doing a guided walk through the
area.  I haven't really seen that much of Bird Hills Park before.  It's
nice, but pretty far from a natural state.

response 4 of 25:

Oct 29 07:44 UTC 1995

I used to do a lot of work in Bird Hills.  Not organized work, but I would
be biking in there and see things that needed to be done and do them.  I gave
up on Bird Hills after they banned bikes (and violated the Open Meetings Act
in the process).

response 6 of 25:

Oct 29 16:07 UTC 1995

I have no pictures.  If you park at the Barton Park parking area off
Huron River Drive and walk up Bird Road from there, the area we were
working in will be on your right (the main section of Bird Hills Park
that most people walk in is on the left).  Finding the pumphouse and other
old buildings is easy -- someone just cut a trail right past them.  I had
the impression they were going to be demolished in the next couple weeks.
They aren't all that great, but it's kind of cool to find such stuff
lurking in the woods.

The Sierra Club kinda fell down on the job on yesterdays workday.  They
only got about five or six people out there.  I think ten or twelve would
make more sense.

Theoretically, we have the communications needed to organize these sorts of
things and get people out to do them.  This is something that requires no
special skills, and is actually rather pleasant and satisfying.  I was
thinking that by doing it jointly with Arbornet, we could actually spice
it up with a bit of friendly competition.

The thing to start would probably be just to do one workday, see how people
like it.

Sure, it makes no particular sense to mix computers and city park work, but
lots of groups pick up charities (I believe the Science Fiction fans do a lot
of fundraising for the blind).

response 8 of 25:

Oct 29 16:41 UTC 1995

tht's wahat i keep saying....but if they want to pay me to come to work...well
that wins...

response 10 of 25:

Oct 30 14:02 UTC 1995

Ahh, one of my favorite stomping grounds exposed to the masses.  Oh well.
I use to explore the old firing range / pump house once or twice a year.
Very few people knew about it and was pretty much left alone.  I'm sure
those old buildings would be a problem once exposed.  The old pump house
seems to be build on an artisian well since there was always watter flowing
out of it when I was there.  The electric pump motor has been stripped
of its field windings leaving only the stator.  Cool place to explore.
I'll miss it.

response 12 of 25:

Oct 31 16:46 UTC 1995

Don't be sorry!  Another part of me feels it should all be cleaned up
before someone gets hurt.

response 14 of 25:

Nov 2 14:59 UTC 1995

I don't like the idea of putting in a golf course in this flood-plain.
The whole thing from the monoculture, Chem-Lawn field to people chasing
balls in little go-karts (Excuse me.  Exercise?!) is pretty sensless to
me.
Why don't they just but in a bunch of small greens scattered throughout
those old trees if they just have to play golf there.  No karts either.
Would be a lot more chalenging!

response 16 of 25:

Nov 2 18:33 UTC 1995

The Lower Huron Metropark floodplain forest is the home to several
MIchigan threatened plant species. They would be trampled in any heavy use
of the area, if they aren't poisoned first in trying to maintain the
"greens". They have already mowed a path through a part of the forest so
the Metropark Commissioners wouldn't get their shoes damp when they took a
stroll there. You should read environment cf responses noted in #13 above,
if you can stomach tales of bureaucratic arrogance and disdain for the
public they "serve". 

response 18 of 25:

Nov 10 04:22 UTC 1995

A coalition is forming to oppose the golf course plan for the floodplain
forest at Lower Huron Metropark. Organizations like the Sierra Club,
Audubon Society, Michigan Natural Areas Council, and others, will be
involved. If you are a member of one of these, you can learn of their
plans for member participation (some of these groups have already held
field trips to the forest). I will continue to post relevant items
from the MNAC newsletter in environment cf (the whole newsletter is
also on file). A group of naturalists have taken a look at natural
areas in all the other H-C Metroparks, and I heard that they declared
that there is *nothing* elsewhere of equal significance to the forest
in Lower Huron Metropark.

response 20 of 25:

Nov 10 19:41 UTC 1995

I don't know of any further workdays scheduled.  I'll post here when I get
the next mailing.

response 22 of 25:

Dec 8 16:06 UTC 1995

The Ann Arbor Parks and Recreation Department will be holding the final
volunteer workday for the season this weekend:

        Time:  Saturday, December 9, 11:00 am to 2:00 pm
        Place:  Furstenberg Park

Furstenberg is a park directly adjacent to Gallup Park.  It's entrance is
right across Fuller Road from Huron High School.  It has been closed for the
last few months as they are building a connecting bridge into Gallup Park and
doing some work to try to restore it to more of a native oak savana.

The workday will consist mostly of hauling invasives plants that have been
cut out of the woods and stacking them for chipping.  Neither any skill nor
any unusual physical fitness is required.  Dress for the weather and for
getting dirty.  Bring work gloves, if you have them (they do have spares).
They will provide food and hot drinks, and will do a tour of the area,
describing the restoration efforts in progress there.

If you plan to go, it helps to phone Catriona Mortell (the Volunteer Steward-
ship Coordinator in Natural Areas Preservation) at 996-3266 so they can plan
how much food to bring and such-like.  But nobody will complain if you just
show up.

(Yes, this conflicts with the Grex Walk.  Oh well.)

response 24 of 25:

Dec 10 04:07 UTC 1995

How did this go? I would imagine that the weather kept many of your volunteers
indoors.