2021 Was A Very Successful Year for Arundo Removal in San Ramon Creek

​A record 30,000 sf of Arundo was removed from the San Ramon Creek subwatershed. This was almost double the amount removed in the previous year. There is approximately 82,000 sf of Arundo identified but not yet removed or treated. Eradication of Arundo in this subwatershed is a real possibility in the next 5 years.

We removed and treated the Arundo in 16 sites primarily in four locations in Danville and Alamo. We gave priority in removal to those patches located furthest upstream including a very large and highly visible site located across from Front St in downtown Danville.

The work was done by a combination of a small team (5 to 10) of volunteers who worked one or two days each week, three large community group events, two contractors and several homeowners. 

We continue to inspect and treat all of the sites that we have treated since 2013. The initial treatment seems to kill around 90% of the Arundo. Each month for several years we see some small regrowth that we treat immediately.

We are thankful for donations and grants from the Walnut Creek Watershed Council, Republic Services, and the Contra Costa County Fish and Wildlife Propagation Fund.

2021 Arundo Removal - by the Numbers
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FSRC had outstanding success at removing Arundo from the San Ramon Creek Watershed this year. We doubled the amount of Arundo removed in 2020.

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In 2021 we removed 30,000 sf of Arundo or about 20% of the total Arundo mapped along San Ramon Creek.  It is almost twice as much as last year. 

At this rate we certainly should be able to do an initial treatment of just about all of the Arundo in our sub-watershed in 5 years. This is an amazing accomplishment for a task that seemed endless just a short time ago! Note however that the actual amount of Arundo remaining will probably exceed the listed 82,000 sf. As we look closely at patches we are finding that there are some additional patches and many of the patches have grown significantly since the original mapping.

We used a variety of sources of manpower to remove the Arundo. We are very thankful to the funding provided by the Walnut Creek Watershed Council that allowed us to hire contractors. We are making some headway on getting homeowners to remove their own Arundo. But most of all we appreciate our volunteers who removed about 2/3 of the Arundo this year.  What a great team they have been all year. It has been a joy to work with all of them!