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The Presidio: Up a Creek, Now With Native Plants

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The Daylighting of Thompson Reach via Presidio SF's YouTube Channel

A much-changed landscape, the Presidio we know today has been altered over the past 235 years to suit the military forces that occupied it. A continuing project of the Presidio Trust is the restoration of native plant habitat and watersheds, and they announced this week that work is well underway daylighting and restoring a section of Dragonfly Creek, which begins in a hidden spring in the historic Fort Scott section of the park, flowing past some tennis courts and the Presidio's native plant nursery towards Crissy FIeld. And until this week, hidden in an underground pipe under tons of Army landfill.


Aerial view of Dragonfly Creek [Image via The Presidio Trust]

See how it's done- check out the video of the daylighting of Thompson's Reach, which like El Polin spring, is part of the ancient creek system that flows towards the Crissy Field wetlands. In 2012-ish, as part of the Doyle Drive reconstruction, Caltrans and the Trust will restore a marsh extending under the freeway called Quartermaster's Reach. As for the nursery, it raises local plants from seed and has proven one of the Trust's most popular volunteer opportunities. The nursery is not open to the public, however, so don't plan on shopping for a new manzanita.
· The Presidio: Get Down and Dirty With the Archaeologists [Curbed SF]

The Presidio Trust

34 Graham Street, San Francisco, CA 94129