Meet the team
Members join the program from all over the country, with all kinds of experiences, and for different reasons. Here's how team members describe what they do while at Clark Public Utilities.
In the beginning of our ten and one-half month term, few of us knew what a riparian zone was or how to properly plant a western red cedar. By year's end the team will have learned the most important nuts and bolts necessary for designing and organizing a restoration project.
From the ground water up, we each use GPS to define the characteristics of our individual sites, we design the restoration projects based on site conditions and program requirements, and follow through by managing the removal of invasive species, flagging to mark out each of the thousands of trees to be planted, and the planting itself. Just like properly preparing to plant a cedar in the most appropriate section of a riparian zone, the team spends a lot of time learning by doing... and by doing a wide variety of activities.
As a team we:
- prepare and maintain the program's nursery stock
- design and construct a native garden display for the annual Home & Garden Idea Fair
- act as crew leaders for community volunteer projects
- maintain current sites
- monitor for plant survivability
- set up and remove irrigation systems
Individually, members take on a sub-specialty:
- water quality monitoring
- Stream Steward program support
- environmental education
- volunteer project management
- nursery assistance
Meanwhile, Northwest Service Academy and Clark Public Utilities provides us with many opportunities to add to and enrich our more defined roles: a bird watching outing at the Ridgefield Refuge with a local birding expert, a wetland restoration training at Reed College canyon, winter twig identification, a hydrology and geomorphology training, outings to local streams with Washington Fish and Wildlife to survey salmonid redds, as well as NWSA sponsored retreats and trips to the Sandy River, Mount St. Helens and to Trout Lake near Mt. Adams.
The monthly stipend is meager but the year's rewards are many.
