Located South of the intersection of Roderick Rd. and Gales Creek Rd. (Highway 8), Washington Co., OR
Photo by Ryan Kilgren, TRWC
The Rippling Waters site offers 20 beautiful acres along Gales Creek in Washington County along the Gales Creek Highway (Highway 8). Although invasive weed management has been going on since the fall of 2003, the recent flooding in the fall of 2007 deposited 2 to 8 inches of silted mud onto the banks, providing a unique opportunity to study how invasive plants spread. Site disturbance is not new to this area, as previous logging and gravel mining have helped to spread invasive plants. English ivy was the predominant focus through 2006, and in 2005 a new partnership was introduced with Clean Water Services to control Japanese knotweed. For 2007, Garlic mustard has been added as a priority with aid coming from grants obtained by the Tualatin Soil and Water Conservation District.
Outreach efforts, mainly those of the Tualatin River Watershed Council, have brought in numerous community groups such as Boy Scout troops, school groups, and employee groups to manually pull Garlic mustard, English ivy, and Himalayan blackberry. Continued monitoring and maintenance includes plans to plant 1,000 native plants in the winter of 2008 and regular work parties to manually remove invasive plants. The dedicated volunteer groups, the scenic rural location, and the recent floodings make the Rippling Waters site at Gales Creek an ideal demonstration site.
To find out more about this site, please visit: http://www.trwc.org/council-projects/gales-rippling-waters.html.
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(Note: Due to a glitch in Google Maps, the marker on this map is showing a slightly incorrect location. The actual location is just south of the intersection of NW Roderick Rd. and NW Gales Creek Rd., which you can see on this map.)
