Saturday, March 10 a group of about 30 people spent the morning planting oak, sycamore, alder, and willow trees along Laguna Creek. The Sacramento Tree Foundation organized the event, with the support of the City of Elk Grove, the LCWC, and the California Association of Resource Conservation Districts. Most of the volunteers were high school students, many members of clubs such as the Environmental Awareness Club, the Future Business Leaders, and others as well as the Girls Scouts. Additionally, many community members participated. About 150 trees were planted along a barren slope of the Laguna Creek bypass channel (see map). 
This engineered channel serves as an overflow for flows from Laguna Creek when there are large rain events. Historically, the floodplain of Laguna Creek was huge, up to 1000 ft. wide in places, maybe even more. As the City of Elk Grove grew, the floodplains were shrunk to make way for homes by building engineered channels. Today, the General Plan does not permit building in a floodplain. This policy helps protect the natural waterways and the habitat and recreational opportunities they provide. But back a number of years ago, “reclaiming the floodplain for development” was permitted. The Laguna Creek bypass is one such channel. Not much consideration was given to creating a channel that provided habitat for aquatic life and birds. The new trees that were planted will go a long way to enhancing making up for this deficiency. In a few years those trees will really start to take shape. Most everyone out there on Saturday felt they contributed something to make our community GREENER!
Keep your eyes open for info on the upcoming Greener Gardens Event. This upcoming event focuses on how we can all make our out backyards GREENER!