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North Van planting event aims to transform overrun area into functioning wetland

A group of volunteers helped give new life to a stretch of green space in North Vancouver Saturday morning.
Ben Bengtson

A group of volunteers helped give new life to a stretch of green space in North Vancouver Saturday morning.

The purpose of the planting event was to help transform a pond near Mackay Creek into a functioning wetland, according to Krystal Brennan, outreach co-ordinator with Wildcoast Ecological Society, which organized the undertaking along with other community partners.

“We really wanted to do this to raise awareness about the need to restore and preserve these kinds of natural spaces,” said Brennan. “There’s so much development around, it’s really important to preserve the spaces we do have left.”

Volunteers gathered at what’s being called the Lloyd wetland or pond, located near the intersection of West First Street and Lloyd Avenue, around 10 a.m.

As traffic whizzed by on busy First Street, a quick deviation from the nearby Spirit Trail into the undergrowth revealed more than a dozen green thumbs hard at work removing invasive plants and replacing them with native ones.

Once volunteers are able to restore the area to proper urban wetland status, the area will be able to provide a habitat for many waterfowl, songbirds and even coho salmon fry, according to Brennan, who added that urban wetlands are “really hard to find.”

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The pond located just through some undergrowth near West First Street and Lloyd Avenue in North Vancouver had been overrun with invasive plants. Volunteers are working to transform it into a functioning wetland - photo Ben Bengtson, North Shore News

“The marsh also provides off-channel habitat for coho salmon. Previously there had been coho salmon in here, but with being choked out by invasive plants we’ve found there wasn’t as much water in here to support those salmon,” said Brennan.

Last month, Wildcoast Ecological Society and other volunteers brought an excavator to help lower the water table at Lloyd wetland and remove more invasive plants which had been turning the wetland into a dry bed, said Brennan.

The wetland sits adjacent to nearby Mackay Creek, which Wildcoast Ecological Society have been helping to maintain and transform since 2013.

“There have been many spills on Mackay Creek,” said Brennan. “A lot of the road runoff and other industrial runoff from nearby areas here will flow through this marsh before entering the creek. This is a way of cleaning that area to help prevent future damage.”