Silverlake Park

After the wonderful restoration work completed at Atturbury Wash, C2E is excited to join forces with the Tucson Audubon Society once again to fund their environmental enhancement vision. This time, the project is Silverlake Park and the vision is to restore native vegetation and improve wildlife habitat to make this park even more valuable to the community and an example of how urban green spaces can serve natural and human purposes. This 53-acre regional park within the South Park Neighborhood is already a focal point for many neighbors and a gathering spot for many recreational activities, such as Ultimate Frisbee and soccer leagues.  The site also represents a semi-natural area where frequent bird and wildlife activity has been seen, but the past management of vegetation to reduce fire risk and increase safety for humans has involved indiscriminate clearing of native and invasive plant life.  Through new urban wash management strategies, Tucson Audubon Society plans to maintain the safe, multi-use functionality of the park that offers recreation to humans and natural habitat for wildlife.

Some of the planned project impacts will be to remove embedded rip-rap and create linear dikes with existing rock to increase meander, infiltration and native vegetation. These changes will maximize wildlife habitat and this project will create a replicable park model.

There to lend a hand, some of the partners in the Silverlake Park work include:

• Trees for Tucson: providing trees and knowledge of local neighborhoods
• Tucson Parks and Recreation Department: assisting in development of best management practices to maximize native bird habitat while balancing goals of recreation, safety, security
• Tucson Clean and Beautiful: aiding with mobilizing neighborhood that has adopted the park and providing logistical support and tools for volunteer work events; proving expertise and support for buffelgrass education and removal
• Holladay Elementary School: participating in bird counts before-and-after to monitor impact of restoration
• Arizona Native Plant Society: consulting and participating