Tips, tricks, and a quick peek into the everyday life of the conservation district.
April showers might bring May flowers, but they can also carry lots of pollution in rainwater runoff, which can harm local salmon. We’re thankful for rainy weather because it nourishes plant life and provides us with water to store for the drier summer months. Luckily, we can take action to keep our water clean and our fish healthy.
Read MoreIf you’re an urban resident, it might be hard to believe you can still provide important habitat for wildlife. And if you live in a rural area, the thought of adding plants when you’re surrounded by forest may feel redundant.
Read MoreManure is a constant presence on farms with livestock. Appropriate storage and management of manure allows it to retain the nutrients that make it such an excellent soil amendment. Proper storage also minimizes the risk that those nutrients will end up polluting our local streams, lakes, or well water.
Read MoreHighway 2 follows the braids and bends of one of Washington’s most scenic rivers, the Skykomish. This river isn’t just beautiful, the Lower Skykomish River Reach contains some of the best habitat in the Snohomish River Basin for Chinook and other salmonids.
Read MoreOur region is facing increasingly dry and hot summers. While the warm weather is often a welcome break from the rain, it also increases wildfire risk, especially for communities in urban-wildland interface areas.
Read MoreIn recent years, the salmon are no longer swimming in Eagle Creek. Laura cites the absence of salmon runs as the main reason why she became interested in hosting a habitat restoration project on her property, which Snohomish Conservation District is now spearheading.
Read MoreKeeping stormwater clean in urban spaces isn’t easy. When rain hits the ground and travels across surfaces like streets and parking lots, it picks up pollutants along the way before heading down a storm drain and into our waterways. But there are nature-based solutions, commonly referred to as Green Stormwater Infrastructure, that collect, slow, and filter stormwater.
Read MoreMany Snohomish County and Camano Island residents have horses, but not all are aware of the effects these equine companions can have on our environment. Horses can overgraze their pastures and compact the soils, and if manure isn't managed properly it can contribute to water pollution.
Read MoreI’ve always struggled to love insects. And I’ll admit, I am judging a book by its cover: their shiny carapaces, their eerie antennae, and their chaotic movements all give me a case of the heebie jeebies. Yet, after reading Farming with Soil Life: A Handbook for Supporting Soil Invertebrates and Soil Health on Farms, I’m finding a new appreciation for these creepy crawlies (and other soil life too!)
Read MoreOn March 19, high school teams from around Northwest Washington gathered at the Brightwater Environmental Education and Community Center in Woodinville to compete in the 2024 Northwest Regional Envirothon competition.
Read MoreIn some ways, applying compost is similar to putting money into a savings account or emergency fund— the benefits are longer-term and create resilient soils that respond better to extreme events like drought.
Read MoreThank you to everyone who submitted a masterpiece to this year’s Art Contest! We were amazed to see all of your creative demonstrations of amphibians.
Read MoreBiocultural restoration is the science and practice of restoring ecosystems, including the human and cultural relationships within those ecosystems. It is based on the concept that humans and nature are intimately linked, and that each can have a positive impact on the health of the other.
Read MoreAs a Restoration Ecologist, Paul Cereghino recognizes the enormity of the challenge we’re facing in our region.
“If you think about every river and stream, every wetland, all the forested buffers, it's over 1,000,000 acres of land across the lowland Salish Sea. A lot of this landbase is degraded and needs restoration,” Paul explains.
Yes, you read the title correctly. We’ve done almost 40 years of plant sales, and 2024 was the best one yet! If you ordered this year, you were part of almost 2,000 people that… wait for it…. ordered 55,000 plants!
Read MoreWhen Ken Coman first spotted a beaver along the stream on his property outside of Snohomish, his first reaction wasn’t concern, it was curiosity. He started doing some reading about the ecological benefits that beavers provide and decided that his goal wasn’t to get rid of them, but to welcome them instead.
Read MoreSoil is teeming with life. With advances in technology, we, the ever-curious above-ground experimenters, are slowly unearthing how these various tiny creatures interact with each other and their environment. Learning how to manage this complex soil ecosystem can feel daunting, especially in the face of environmental extremes and changes, but many people are having success by focusing on soil health.
Read MoreBountiful Buffers (sometimes referred to as working buffers or harvestable riparian buffers) combine multiple agroforestry practices to create a riparian buffer that achieves ecological benefits while also producing food, medicine, or materials.
Read MoreIf you meet Melissa Correia and Joanna Kenyon from Tangled Thicket Farm, you may discover that they value something that is hard to quantify, but that science is starting to prove is deeply important: connection. Our connection with each other, our community, the natural world, and also the connections that exist between the plants, animals, and fungi within ecosystems.*
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Snohomish Conservation District | 528 91st Ave NE, Lake Stevens, WA 98258 | 425-335-5634
