California Conservation Corps Crews Continue Carbon Canyon Creek Cleanup

Over the last couple of weeks, work crews from the California Conservation Corps, under contract with the Santa Ana Watershed Authority, which oversees a grant-funded arundo donax treatment program, have been busily working to clear dead arundo and much other material (plant and otherwise) from Carbon [Canyon] Creek.

As the photo below shows, there has been a significant amount of debris taken out of the creek and hauled away by the Corps (unfortunately this does not include trash dumped at what are now two spots along the old La Vida Mineral Springs resort property, although someone did recently remove the garbage at the deep turnout on the other side of the highway.)

These bags of plant and other material removed by California Conservation Corps crews from Carbon [Canyon] Creek represent a small fraction of what has been done by these workers over the last couple of weeks.  This is at the west end of the old La Vida Mineral Springs property on the Brea side of Carbon Canyon.

This project with the creek will be ongoing and, hopefully, funded, as efforts to eradicate the highly invasive, flammable and difficult to kill arundo continue over years.  There has already been a noticeable difference in the appearance and water flow in the creek.

Everyone involved in this project, including the CCC, SAWA, Hills for Everyone, the Carbon Canyon Fire Safe Council, the City of Brea and anyone inadvertently left off this list, deserves credit for participating in what is probably the sole bright spot to come from the November 2008 wildfires that ravaged the Orange County portion of Carbon Canyon.