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Wednesday, October 28, 2015 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
SHS students repair Whychus riparian area
“I think it’s a good way to
give back to the ecosystem
that provides so much for us,
and to study our environment
and learn how it changes,”
said Lauren Wattenburg,
Sisters High School (SHS)
junior, reflecting on her time
helping to replant the ripar-
ian zone on the banks of
Whychus Creek.
L ast Tuesday after-
noon, 20 juniors from
Glenn Herron’s SHS sci-
ence and Interdisciplinary
Environmental Expedition
(IEE) class arrived by school
bus at the creek to help repair
its banks.
IEE is composed of a com-
munity of learners working
together to gain a balanced,
in-depth understanding of the
world around them. Using an
integrated approach, students
are provided with the educa-
tional opportunity to study
and learn about the natural
environment through a hands-
on format.
Plenty of hands-on work
is needed along Whychus
Creek.
Years of flood damage and
historical water usage had
left Whychus in less-than-
desirable condition to main-
tain fish populations. USFS
Sisters District fish biologist
Mike Riehle is charged with
the responsibility to correct
those conditions and make
things right.
However, even with
Riehle’s wide experience
as a biologist it would have
been impossible for him to
take on such a project by
himself. With the help of the
Upper Deschutes Watershed
Council (UDWC), and lead-
ers like education director
Kolleen Yake, Deschutes
County Juvenile Community
Justice participants, Sisters
High School IEE students,
Children’s Forest volunteers,
and the Oregon Watershed
Enhancement Board
(OWEB), he took it on — and
the job he’s doing is looking
good.
“Yeah…” Riehle said,
while giving out willow,
alder, cottonwood and spirea
seedlings to the IEE students,
“sometimes I feel more like
a gardener these days than a
fish biologist.”
Before handing out the
seedlings, both Riehle and
Yake explained to the students
how important is the work
they’re doing to reconstruct
the side channels the Forest
Service created in a recent
project. Those side chan-
nels will keep the creek from
running amok downstream,
and destroying the hundreds
of riffles, log structures and
riparian habitat necessary for
healthy fish habitat.
Each year in fall, Xerces
Society biologists come over
from Portland to conduct an
inventory of the invertebrate
population in Whychus Creek
(with the irreplaceable help
of local volunteers). They
are finding more diversified
invertebrates that indicate
a healthy ecosystem. Those
invertebrates are vital as food
for the introduced salmonids
that will make the long voy-
age to the sea and return to
breed.
It took most of the after-
noon for the IEE students to
plant a variety of hardy trees
and shrubs along shoreline of
the creek.
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Continued from page 1
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Junior Emily Skalda (left); Kolleen Yake, udWC; SHS teacher glenn Herron;
and junior Johanna geisen (front) planted alders on Whychus Creek.
About an hour before
returning to the school there
was time to conduct another
facet of the IEE program.
Students separate, one per-
son will drift off to sit under
a pine or cottonwood, while
others, in twos and threes,
will go off and sit down next
to Whychus to write reflective
thoughts and poems about
their day.
Yake, who has worked
with over 3,000 students in
watershed restoration proj-
ects, knows this time is as
important to the individual
students as the restoration is
to the creek.
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“What the students
develop during this period
will ultimately bring about a
sense of place, and the desire
to become life-long stewards
of Whychus,” she said.
In the spring, a select
group of students will return
to the creek for another IEE
experience aimed at devel-
oping an even deeper under-
standing of the resources they
have been working with, to
create music, art and poetry
that sings of what they have
learned and what’s in their
hearts.
plans and decided that the
park could be built in phases,
Hughes reported.
Because of donations
from the community and
the Central Oregon Trails
Alliance (COTA), resources
were available to construct
the pump track portion of the
park as Phase 1. Other phases
of the park, including the skill
features, will be much more
time-consuming and costly to
construct.
On Sunday, October 18,
a team of local volunteers,
spearheaded by Joel Palanuk
from COTA and Paul Lissette
from Dirt Mechanics, shaped
and formed the donated dirt
the committee has been gath-
ering into an exciting new
small pump track appropri-
ate for kids and adults alike.
Once the dirt was roughly
shaped out, they packed it
down the fun way — by rid-
ing it. Casey Meudt from
Blazin Saddles ran back to
his shop and grabbed a few
fat tire bikes and let people
ride them around to help pack
the dirt.
“The pump track is part of
a much bigger park we have
planned, but it’s great to get
something done so that the
kids can enjoy it before win-
ter hits,” said Palanuk.
For more information
or to donate to the project,
contact Hughes at SPRD,
541-549-2091.
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