More than a dozen volunteers fanned out across a sparse expanse in southwest Santa Rosa in early December with gloves, shovels and wagons holding potted trees, shrubs, and brush ready to be planted.
The new vegetation will help support various pollinators and other wildlife as well as provide shade along a newly restored stretch of Colgan Creek.
The work represents the culmination of an effort more than two decades in the making aimed at breathing life back into the urban creek.
Colgan Creek was straightened and channelized in the 1940s for agricultural purposes. Santa Rosa officials sought to restore a 1.3-mile section downstream between Elsie Allen High School and Victoria Drive to a more natural state…