Project Watershed would like to thank our volunteers from Superstore, North Island College and around the Valley for their assistance with this important task and especially for doing it at 6:30 in the morning!

Our intrepid group of volunteers showed up at 6:30 in the morning and enthusiastically went to work carefully harvesting eelgrass from the healthy, natural bed on the south side of the Royston wrecks according to the instructions of the project leader, Cynthia Durance. Once they had collected the stems for transplanting, they then sat down to attach the washers to the plants with twist ties. This is an important step as the currents and tidal action mean that the plants cannot attach without some assistance. That assistance is provided by the washers, as well as by divers carefully inserting the washers into the sediment to ensure that the plant stays attached. The volunteers then bundled the eelgrass to make it easier for the divers to plant despite the current in that area.

Our volunteer divers, Cynthia Durance and Joyce McMenamon, then spent several hours carefully transplanting the eelgrass on the north side of the Royston wrecks. Our efforts were appreciated as when checked on a few days later the plants were full of little crabs enthusiastically feeding. Project Watershed would also like to thank Mountain Equipment Coop and Creekside Commons for providing the funding for this important restoration which provides a multitude of benefits by improving habitat for crabs, shellfish and other organisms, including salmon and herring, as well as sequestering carbon better than most plants on land.