News and Events
from One Tam

REYL participants kayaking during the previous year's program. Photo: Sara Leon Guerrero / One Tam

One Tam's Rising Environmental Youth Leaders (REYL) program for high school students is now accepting applications! REYL is a paid high school environmental leadership program that connects young people from underserved communities to their local parks and open space. The program will run October 2021 to May 2022. Young adults learn the skills necessary to become strong environmental advocates and community leaders through service learning, environmental education, and outdoor trips. 

Applications are due September 13. Learn more and apply >>

One Tam team members Rachel Kesel, David Greenberger, and Michael Sturtevant, who lead One Tam's EDRR program, removing thoroughwort (Ageratina adenophora) near Bootjack Campground in Mt. Tamalpais State Park in 2019. Photo: Naftali Moed / State Parks

Why is surveying for weeds important for Mt. Tam? Well, it’s kind of like brushing your teeth – something you have to do regularly to avoid health problems later. Like any preventive health measure for people, monitoring for invasive plants is important for the health of Mt. Tam’s ecosystems. One Tam's Early Detection and Rapid Response (EDRR) program for monitoring invasive plants reached a milestone this summer, finishing a second cycle of surveys along the mountain’s road and trail network. 

This second three-year EDRR survey cycle began in 2019 and was a true partnership effort that overcame delays caused by COVID-19 in 2020. From mid-March to mid-June 2021, the One Tam team surveyed over 150 miles of roads and trails! National Park Service and Marin County Parks staff covered extra miles on their lands so that Parks Conservancy staff could focus on the remaining partner lands. 

During this second cycle of surveys, the teams found relatively few new populations of weeds that are a priority for removal, which is an early sign that the first EDRR cycle was effective. Due to the program’s efforts, along with ongoing agency efforts, today's highest priority invasive plants are being found and removed before they’re able to seriously affect the health of the mountain. 

Bothin Marsh. Photo: One Tam

It’s been a busy year for One Tam’s work to adapt Bothin Marsh to sea level rise. The project team has completed an analysis of the Adaptation Concepts for enhancing the Bothin Marsh Open Space Preserve’s tidal marsh and elevating the Mill Valley-Sausalito Multi-Use Pathway, and with community input a favored approach has emerged.

You can learn about our favored approach, with the Mill Valley-Sausalito Multi-use Pathway ringing the marsh, by watching our June 8 presentation,"Evolving Shorelines Community Meeting: Concepts Evaluation Presentation."  We shared how we evaluated the ecological and public access benefits, as well as other important considerations for each of the concepts. We also shared a summary of the Adaptation Concepts Survey and discussed how the community’s input informed our evaluation. You can view the detailed Adaptation Concept Report which documents the adaptation planning and design process that will serve as the foundation for future detailed design development.

In September, the project team will begin additional study and design of the re-aligned trail other marsh resilience measures. We’ll be in touch with future updates in this e-news, and you can sign up here to get special email updates on our work at Bothin Marsh and announcements for future events.

In the meantime, we invite you to explore more resources about our Evolving Shorelines work at Bothin Marsh:

• Find the “why” behind the Evolving Shorelines project here >>
• See this work featured on NBC Bay Area’s Open Road series, hosted by Doug McConnell  >>
• Read a great write-up about the project in  Estuary News, the regional magazine of the San Francisco Estuary Partnership >>

Phoenix Lake showing low water level. Photo: Marin Water

With reservoir levels at historic lows, Marin Water’s board of directors declared a water shortage emergency and adopted mandatory water use restrictions. The goal of the restrictions is to achieve a 40 percent reduction in water use districtwide. Marin Water is monitoring drought conditions carefully and additional restrictions will be added as needed. Please view current restrictions including a spray irrigation schedule by community and get tips and rebates to help you save.

Monarch butterflies and milkweed. Photos: iNaturalist users erinacious and icosahedron. 

This summer One Tam launched the Marin Milkweed Monitors program as part of our work to support the western monarch butterfly. It’s a community science initiative to understand the extent and condition of monarch breeding habitat in public lands managed by One Tam partners. Our knowledge of wild native milkweeds in this area is incomplete, so we recruited 20 community members to become ecological detectives and help us answer questions like: Is milkweed present in known historical sites? Are there sites we don’t know about? How are the milkweeds doing? Are monarch butterflies using them to raise their caterpillars?

Volunteers will complete their detective work by October, and we’ll be able to update you on what they found this fall. 

You too can help support the monarch butterfly! Learn more about this continental conservation effort >>

And, as always, document when you see them on iNaturalist (remember, biodiversity day coming up next week is a great time to get started!) 

Volunteers participating with the Tam Van and a Western Pond Turtle . Photos: Turtle Observers

Despite the adversities posed by COVID-19 and a record-breaking drought, the Turtle Observer and Frog Docent programs led by Marin Water were a huge success this year. Transitioning our orientations online presented its challenges, but in turn allowed us to train an unprecedented number of community members about two species we work to protect on the mountain: western pond turtles and foothill yellow-legged frogs.

Turtle Observers volunteered the highest number of hours in 2021 since 2010, and nine of our 32 Observers were youth! Because of the drought, many Observers had to spend more time looking for turtles in unusual locations and on the shores of the lakes. But they found them! The 2021 high counts of western pond turtles (WPT) from all four lakes yielded a total of 30 native turtle sightings; 16% of turtles recorded. The stability of WPT populations over the thirteen-year monitoring period indicates that the species is not in a dramatic decline in response to the rise of non-native populations. However, continued growth in non-native populations will likely increase pressures on WPT populations. View the season summary here >>

Frog Docents combined efforts with the One Tam Ambassador program. Adding outreach shifts at the Tam Van allowed us to provide more educational materials about foothill yellow-legged frogs than ever before and speak with members of the community at the trailhead for the first time. Marin Water helps the frogs through measures like moving egg masses laid in roads, the removal of non-native predators from creeks, and the presence of informational signage and docents at sensitive habitat during the breeding season. Numbers of egg masses and frogs in Little Carson Creek indicate a generally stable population since monitoring efforts began. View the season summary here >>

Thank you for contributing your time and energy to supporting the health of the watershed. We look forward to seeing you all next spring! 

In the meantime, check out another opportunity to make a difference in the watershed, focused on removing litter. More information >>

Volunteers participating in a Tamalpais Bee Lab event this summer. Photo: Lisette Arellano / One Tam

The Tamalpais Bee Lab has enjoyed lots of enthusiasm for the return of in-person events with COVID-19 precautions. Thank you to all who came out this summer, and to those who expressed interest, to contribute to this effort to learn more about Mt. Tam’s wild bees and other pollinators. Field collection will continue until the end of October. We will announce more Tamalpais Bee Lab dates shortly with new morning and afternoon sessions on many Saturdays this fall - check onetam.org/calendar for updates.