It should come as no surprise that our staff is happy to seize any excuse to get out of the office & into the field, no matter the season. We’re also passionate about talking about what we do & sharing that with the community & in particular interested youth. A field trip out to our Mabey Lane restoration project in December with Salmon High’s environmental science class? We couldn’t come up with a better excuse to close our office for a few hours (& it certainly didn’t hurt that while Salmon was socked in with an inversion, the sun was shining at Tendoy!). Our stewardship coordinator, Breann Westfall, visited the class on Monday to provide a primer on the project, explaining the engineering that went into the project, why it’s important & the benefits the stream bank stabilization & side channel will eventually provide.
After a short walk to the restoration site (the road wasn’t quite school bus-worthy) & lunch cooked by Matt Green of Trout Unlimited, the class split up into three groups where they learned more about the permitting for this type of project, the plants being utilized & the many steps included in a restoration project of this size.
Then it was time for some hands on learning & the students got to spend the rest of the time working with the planting crew to plant the native plants being utilized to stabilize the bank.
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