Watershed council to honor student volunteers
Celebration planned to recognize students who helped with a year-long fish survey
Paige O'Rourke
Issue date: 5/27/09 Section: News
The Luckiamute Watershed Council (LWC) will be honoring Western students Thursday, May 28, for volunteering their time to help with a year-long fish survey. The purpose of the survey is to establish the first official count of the native fish congregations in the Luckiamute area in decades and to uncover what types of fish live where and how each of these groups have been faring in recent years.
To gain accurate fish counts, LWC members and volunteers geared up with wet suits and snorkels and waded into the various Luckiamute water pools in order to count the fish as they moved upstream. So far, the LWC has found that 99.6 percent of the winter steelhead and 80 percent of the cutthroat trout live within just 36 percent of the Watershed's land area, making it vital that these streams in particular be protected and kept at environmentally sustainable levels.
"The fish really like this area and, for this reason, these streams are becoming a primary focus for the work of the Luckiamute Watershed Council," stated LWC Coordinator Nicole Duplaix.
Having conducted the first round of the survey last summer, scientist Steve Trask will lead the discussion on Thursday night, explaining project details and how it will benefit the LWC and the Willamette Valley.
Currently, LWC volunteers are contacting landowners to begin the second round of the fish count. Much of the land which the LWC is surveying is private property. Therefore, volunteers must ask permission from about 245 landowners before the project can be reestablished.
The continuation of this study is aimed at affirming the numbers generated by last summer's fish count as well as surveying any new occurrences that have taken place over the past year.
The LWC is comprised completely of volunteer workers who have a desire to learn more about the watershed and the ways in which they can help improve the water and habitat conditions within the Luckiamute area.
"Our mission is to foster good stewardship of natural resources and develop an improved understanding of the area's biological diversity," former Outreach Specialist Christine Hurst said. "We work with diverse groups in the community to identify common goals and to work together for a healthy watershed."
Western has partnered with the LWC for nine years, with several university students working side-by-side with LWC members, helping with both the survey and several other watershed projects.
"We are constantly amazed by the generosity and the cooperation of the people in our watershed. Nobody is obligated to help us, and yet they do," Duplaix said.
The information and honoring session will take place at 7 p.m. at the Monmouth Public Library, located at 168 South Ecols Street.
Communications Professor and LWC member Emily Plec invites all Western students to "take a break from your end-of-term woes to come out, have some free Mendi's pizza, catch up with your classmates and find out the results of the study that many of you helped make happen!"
Students interested in finding out more information about the fish survey or future LWC projects may contact Dr. Plec at plece@wou.edu or Duplaix at nicole.duplaix@oregonstate.edu.
To gain accurate fish counts, LWC members and volunteers geared up with wet suits and snorkels and waded into the various Luckiamute water pools in order to count the fish as they moved upstream. So far, the LWC has found that 99.6 percent of the winter steelhead and 80 percent of the cutthroat trout live within just 36 percent of the Watershed's land area, making it vital that these streams in particular be protected and kept at environmentally sustainable levels.
"The fish really like this area and, for this reason, these streams are becoming a primary focus for the work of the Luckiamute Watershed Council," stated LWC Coordinator Nicole Duplaix.
Having conducted the first round of the survey last summer, scientist Steve Trask will lead the discussion on Thursday night, explaining project details and how it will benefit the LWC and the Willamette Valley.
Currently, LWC volunteers are contacting landowners to begin the second round of the fish count. Much of the land which the LWC is surveying is private property. Therefore, volunteers must ask permission from about 245 landowners before the project can be reestablished.
The continuation of this study is aimed at affirming the numbers generated by last summer's fish count as well as surveying any new occurrences that have taken place over the past year.
The LWC is comprised completely of volunteer workers who have a desire to learn more about the watershed and the ways in which they can help improve the water and habitat conditions within the Luckiamute area.
"Our mission is to foster good stewardship of natural resources and develop an improved understanding of the area's biological diversity," former Outreach Specialist Christine Hurst said. "We work with diverse groups in the community to identify common goals and to work together for a healthy watershed."
Western has partnered with the LWC for nine years, with several university students working side-by-side with LWC members, helping with both the survey and several other watershed projects.
"We are constantly amazed by the generosity and the cooperation of the people in our watershed. Nobody is obligated to help us, and yet they do," Duplaix said.
The information and honoring session will take place at 7 p.m. at the Monmouth Public Library, located at 168 South Ecols Street.
Communications Professor and LWC member Emily Plec invites all Western students to "take a break from your end-of-term woes to come out, have some free Mendi's pizza, catch up with your classmates and find out the results of the study that many of you helped make happen!"
Students interested in finding out more information about the fish survey or future LWC projects may contact Dr. Plec at plece@wou.edu or Duplaix at nicole.duplaix@oregonstate.edu.
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