The tubes lay across the hillside like enormous worms.
Wrapped in fiber, filled with straw and seemingly as long as a bus, the lines, called wattles, keep soil from washing away.
This was especially needed on a recent Wednesday morning, in a neighborhood just north of the airport, as a handful of people pounded stakes and pulled ropes around the tubes.
The wattles were the foundation for a project that could potentially transform the region.
But at the moment, swaths of the canyon were bare, and it looked like it might rain.
Wednesday’s crew worked for San Diego Canyonlands.
Earlier this year, the Canyonlands Environmental Career Opportunities initiative began paying participants — many of whom have been homeless — almost $20 an hour to replace invasive species with greenery less likely to ignite.
Nonprofit leaders have big hopes for where this could lead.
“We have the chance to solve homelessness and climate change at the same time,” said Keith Wilson, a Canyonlands spokesperson.
On Nov. 15, around a half-dozen people spread throughout Mission Hills Canyon. Two young men with short beards, one red and one black, huddled by a wattle.
Giovanni Muniz (red) picked up a mallet.
Not long ago, the 23-year-old was in and out of hospitals, struggling with thoughts of suicide. A lot of time was spent staring at walls.
He eventually ended up in an independent living facility where someone told him about Canyonlands. Muniz doesn’t feel like he’s totally out of the woods, but he loves working outside.
Standing nearby was his 29-year-old friend Benjamin Malo (black) who once spent months sleeping in his Honda Civic.
Malo heard about the gig from Muniz. Both are contracted to work through at least December, although they’d love to continue full-time if the opportunity arose.
The surrounding vegetation was a mix of lush foliage and brush indistinguishable from kindling. You could generally tell which plants belonged by their color: Brown bushes weren’t native, green ones were. (Iceplant, which originated in South Africa, is an exception.)
The crew had already killed and removed grasses like thistle and ripgut brome. Jen Ochoa, a Canyonlands instructor, estimated they’d pulled out about 2,000 pounds worth.
The nonprofit plans to fill that space with hollyleaf cherry, prickly pear cactus and tiny sagebrush flowers that smell faintly of pine. One existing cluster of buckwheat would hopefully spread naturally, now that the soil around it was free.
Once those “new” plants held the hill, prettier trails and boosted home values might follow, along with endangered birds like the California Gnatcatcher.
But in the meantime: Wattles.
Muniz and Malo drove wooden stakes into the dirt around one tube and tied yellow ropes to each that criss-crossed the fiber.
Muniz swung the mallet into the last stake. One, two, three. Ochoa watched silently. Nine, ten, eleven. The rope tightened. Twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three.
“Good enough?” Muniz asked.
“Little bit more,” Ochoa said.
Twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six.
“Nice,” Ochoa said.
The sky darkened. Ochoa looked toward the bottom of the canyon where dozens of wattles were piled. If they weren’t carried to higher ground, the tubes might swell with rain water until they’d be nearly impossible to move.
The group started down the hillside.
Canyonlands has hired around a dozen people so far to work 18 hours a week for several-month stints.
Many applicants are referred by Pathways Community Services and the Lucky Duck Foundation gave $50,000 to cover paychecks. The Navajo, Manzanita and Ruffin canyons are on the list of places to tackle.
Along with landscaping training, participants receive help with their resumes, and at least two in the first cohort found full-time jobs, a spokesperson said.
Leaders hope the program will later feed into the new American Climate Corps, a federal effort that President Joe Biden has said could employ thousands.
Muniz and Malo stopped at the pile of wattles.
It was hard to count how many there were, and each was too long for a single person to carry.
Muniz approached the middle of the stack. Malo grabbed a pair on one side while the opposite ends were lifted by Jose Jasso, another Canyonlands staffer.
The three hoisted two wattles onto their shoulders and strode up a hill.
The first rain drop fell.
The men dropped the tubes near some rocks, knocking a cloud of dust into the air.
Lightning cut across the sky.
The group returned to the pile. Hoist, carry, drop. Hoist, carry, drop.
Jasso asked if the others wanted music. Malo requested the song “Devastated” by the rapper Joey Bada$$. Jasso cued it up on a speaker hanging from his jeans, but the beat became increasingly hard to hear over the rain.
More lifting, more dropping, more lightning. It was really coming down now.
Then the pile, finally, seemed smaller.
It looked like they’d make it.
