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Brush puller wins Quality of Life Award

Volunteer weeds out non-native plants that threaten creek habitat.

Charles Kennard, a mainstay of creek-restoration work at Drake High School, has been named a San Anselmo Green Award winner.

Kennard, who started pulling out non-native French broom plants in 1990 while affiliated with what's now the Golden Gate National Park Conservancy, switched to working on Sleepy Hollow Creek in 1997.

"I just decided to do things closer to home," explains the 58-year-old volunteer most people call Charlie.

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The creek is only about six blocks from where he's lived since 1982 — and he's been working on it for 13 years.

"I really enjoy the physical part," he said, "getting my hands dirty, working with plants, working with students. I'm not much of a meeting person."

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The award, which the Quality of Life Commission unanimously voted at a recent meeting, will be presented at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 14 at the San Anselmo Town Hall.

Non-native plants specific to Drake that Kennard has removed or controlled include Acacia, blackberry, periwinkle and cherry plum, plus several grasses.

Why are non-natives bad for the environment? They tend to overrun other growth, keep light away, and "don't provide much habitat or food for local insects, births and animals," said Kennard.

Some, such as the Acacias, even "have a chemical released by their leaves and inhibit the growth of other plants and the germination of seeds."

Kennard's work may be easy to spot.

"Some of the plants we've planted — alder trees, for example — now are over 40 feet tall," he said.

Each year as school starts, the native of England works with teacher Sue Fox and students from SEA-DISC, a hands-on environmental academy at Drake.

"I go along and help them identify what's natural, what's not, and then they do research. Then I get the plants for them, and they do some work removing non-native plants and replacing them," he said.

The students normally finish their work at Sleepy Hollow Creek by the end of October, when Kennard takes over with the help of two or three members of the Friends of Corte Madera Creek, an organization where he serves as vice president.

Some of his legacy might be imperceptible to non-environmentalists.

Take, for example, his discovery of Broomrape, a native plant that has no green and gets all its nutrients from elderberry. Though, it's a parasite, it doesn't do sufficient damage to the host plant to be significant. The only one found here is the first seen since 1923.

Undetectable, too, is what isn't there.

Kennard has cut back creek-blocking branches for flood-control purposes. And that's allowed him to "take care of the plants there and, in the process, save the town Public Works Department the trouble." 

He's also willing to provide a bit of education along the way.

Some of the flora he planted, he explains, was "traditionally used by local Indians — the Miwok and Pomo."

And when he uses some of those plants in weaving baskets, there's a story and cultural message, as well.

Funding for the creek restoration work, Kennard says, originally came from a county program with an oblique acronym – MCSTOPPP – which focuses on water pollution. But now it's under the auspices of another county agency, the Fisheries and Wildlife Advisory Committee.

Kennard, meanwhile, doesn't volunteer only in San Anselmo. He pulls French broom outside Fairfax for the Marin County Open Space District, and cares for an area of the Marin Art and Garden Center in Ross.

When not volunteering for them or the Friends, who meet monthly in the San Anselmo Historical Society Room in the Town Hall complex, Kennard makes a living as a photographer and teacher (two of his current classes take place at the Point Reyes National Seashore).

Because he was brought up "near a stream that was similar to the creek here, in some respects it's been like going back to my childhood," he said.

But that's hardly his only reason for volunteering. "We do so many things that mess up this world, it's gratifying to do something that will be positive and live beyond me."

Kennard will become the 15th winner of the environmentally based Green Award.

Earlier citations were given to Steve Reinertsen and Scott Weeks, Sita Khufu, Rohana McLaughlin, Joyce Brown, Larry Nilsen, Matt Eakle, Ted Bakkila, Christine Dietrich Cragg, Bob Mellin, H.G. Von Dallwitz, Denali Gillaspie, Jonathan Braun, Dan Goltz and the husband-wife team of Janet Byrum and Bob Fleming.

Green and the broader Silver Awards are handed out in alternate months. Nominations for either can be emailed to voodee@sbcglobal.net or townclerk@ci.san-anselmo.ca.us — or mailed or hand-delivered to the Quality of Life Commission c/o the Town of San Anselmo, 525 San Anselmo Ave.    

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