ANACAPA ISLAND : Students to Uproot Invading Ice Plant

A group of Nordhoff High School students will set sail for Anacapa Island on Friday for a three-day environmental cleanup project aimed at uprooting invading ice plant that is threatening native flowers on the island.

About six members of the Ojai school’s environmental club and two teachers will camp on Anacapa for the weekend to lend a helping hand to the island’s fragile ecosystem.

“I called up the Friends of the Channel Islands to talk about island cleanup and one of the projects they talked about was ice plant eradication--that sounded like fun,” said James Velasquez, a 17-year-old senior who spearheaded the project. “Somebody needs to do that kind of work.”

The Channel Islands National Park, which includes Anacapa Island, must rely on volunteers to help maintain the five-island park because of budget constraints.

“There are so many people who want to see the islands, this gives them an opportunity,” said Cherryl Wendel, business manager of the Friends of the Channel Islands, a nonprofit group that organizes volunteer work projects.

Ice plant, which was introduced on Anacapa in the early 1900s to curb soil erosion, has taken over in recent years, threatening to crowd out native plant species like the flowering giant coreopsis, Wendel said.

The students will remove about 50 tons of ice plant, which will to to the island’s compost facility, Wendel said.

The students, who have sold T-shirts to raise money to pay for the trip, hope to catch a glimpse of migrating gray whales or dolphins. But their main goal is to benefit the island.

“I think it would be a lot of help if we could get this going and be able to restore the island back to its native state,” James said.