Saturdays are cleanup days for the creek

Volunteers with Adopt the Creek Workdays sponsored by Mountains Restoration Trust have been toiling on Saturday mornings at Las Virgenes Creek to transform the sometimes overgrown, clogged up and unhealthy creek into a beautiful riparian waterway.

Las Virgenes Creek provides refuge and safe passage for wildlife travel between the protected open spaces north of the 101 Freeway corridor and Malibu Creek State Park and Malibu Lagoon State Beach. Creek restoration enhances the surroundings and leisure activities of Agoura and Calabasas residents and also helps to maintain property values and full residency.

A healthy Las Virgenes creek will filter out pollutants as it moves downstream. In fact, research indicates that within 1,000 yards of entering a stream, more than half of the inorganic nitrogen waste the water receives is stored or transformed into a less harmful substance.

During the rainy season, a healthy stream absorbs excess water, provides natural flood control and recharges essential ground water reserves.

Nutrients from decaying leaves, fish and animals in the water are recycled and become food for downstream organisms. This process also removes organic material that could overwhelm the living creatures in the creek.

Finally, healthy streams, with native plants and trees growing on their banks maintain the indigenous biological diversity of the local fragile Mediterranean ecosystem.

Residents can help preserve the local ecology by volunteering for Adopt the Creek Workdays when time permits.

The next Las Virgenes Creek Work Day is tomorrow, Oct. 4 from 8 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Volunteers will meet in front of Church in the Canyon, 4235 Las Virgenes Road, Calabasas. The entire family is welcomed.

Volunteer are also welcome at MRT's Headwaters Corner at Calabasas Educational Center, 3815 Old Topanga Canyon Road, where they can learn more about how to protect and preserve the biological diversity of the Santa Monica Mountains.

The Educational Center seeks to teach both adults and children about living on the edge by helping them coexist successfully with the natural world in their own backyards.

For more information, call (818) 591-1701, ext. 205.