This sand bar will grow Artemisia , Mimulus , perhaps Angelica from the mountains. Perhaps in twenty years we can come back again with another group of new students. Perhaps they'll fall asleep at lunch in Artemisia patches that will grow on that sandy area. We will know, won't we. And Michael Moore has said that many rivers in the plains are so degraded, and that their upper lands have been degraded, that the seeds no longer flow from the mountain to replenish the river's edge down low.
Lets be thankful that Oregon's ecosystem is still a bit more intact.
And despite the CNN coverage, despite making the front page of a major Chilean newspaper, Oregon geology and ecology continues to evolve. It's easy to harvest wild plants, the hard part is not harvesting.