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| “Kids
can start seeing it’s not just about protecting the water and
the stream to the ocean. It’s about the upland, what they do in their own neighborhoods. After learning about how precious that wetland is, there’s a 180-degree turnaround, a feeling of pride in what you have in your very own back yard.” MARGARET AND TED GODSHALK, PARADISE CREEK EDUCATIONAL PARK, NATIONAL CITY, CALIFORNIA |
After seeing the wetlands restoration
underway in the Florida Everglades and the Alaskan Wildlife Refuge, Ted
and Margaret Godshalk knew they had a job to do in rehabilitating the
salt marsh in their own National City neighborhood.
“My mother-in-law has been in the neighborhood for 90 years. That’s
part of why it’s so important to us,” said Ted, executive
director of Paradise Creek Educational Park, a non-profit organization
working to restore the urban salt marsh creek that connects San Diego
Bay to the watershed of the surrounding mountains and city landscape.
“We went to the Everglades and to Alaska and all that fact gathering
led us to believe we could do it too. It’s nice to work in Alaska,
but you have personal contact with it when it is your own neighborhood.”
The National City couple is a driving force behind the restoration at
Paradise Creek, a home to crabs, egrets, snails and various wetland plants,
but also located in a working class area of auto repair and painting shops,
industrial warehouses and modest homes.The creek has long been a dumping
ground for used motor oil, batteries and other flotsam that threaten the
wildlife and the ocean, just a few hundred yards away.
The Educational Park was created in 1999 on a halfmile stretch of the
creek adjacent to Hoover Elementary School, where Margaret teaches fourth
grade. In 2005, National City received a $75,000 City Makeover grant from
Metropolitan to help expand the park by providing a wetland pond vegetated
with salt marsh plants, coastal sage upland habitat, and interpretive
signage to educate the public about the watershed and environmental issues.
“Metropolitan’s grant is going to help put in native plants
and signage, and irrigation—temporary irrigation because, ideally,
the plants won’t need it after a point in time,” Margaret
said. “Kids can start seeing it’s not just about the water
and the stream to the ocean. It’s about the upland, what they do
in their own neighborhoods, their own yards.”
The creek offers Margaret’s classes and others a hands-on science
lesson that teaches children the importance of ecology. Classes conduct
water quality tests; testing dissolved oxygen, phosphates, nitrates, turbidity,
and pH. They track their findings in logs and can see how the quality
changes and then discuss what might be causing them.
The Godshalks want kids to come away with an understanding of the value
of wetlands.
“After our first trip out they ask me ‘Are we going to the
creek today?’” Margaret said. “It’s the same excitement
I felt as an adult when I started learning about the creek and noticing
these beautiful birds, learning about the invertebrates, and the horntail.
“After learning about how precious that wetland is, there’s
a 180-degree turnaround, a feeling of pride in what you have in your very
own back yard,” she said. “That whole feeling of pride and
stewardship, that’s what I’m going after.”
Kids who are part of Ted’s after-school “Egret Club”
participate in monthly creek-clean-up days earning credits that can be
redeemed for a free kayak trip on the South San Diego Bay, which reinforces
the lessons they’ve learned about the importance of keeping the
watershed healthy because it flows to the sea.
“The exciting thing about it is that this is going to keep growing,
it’s boundless,” Margaret said.“Hopefully at one point
we’re going to step back and just let the kids be the ones who are
the stewards.”