Tips, tricks, and a quick peek into the everyday life of the conservation district.
The heat and drought made July 29th's "Your Groundwater and Camano Island Aquifers" a very timely event! Over 160 Camano Islanders attended the workshop that featured a detailed presentation by Island County Hydrogeologist Doug Kelly about Island County's aquifers, seawater intrusion, and the abundance of data maintained on the islands' water wells.
Read MoreA sunny and warm day on Camano Island greeted participants of the inaugural Lawns to Lettuce workshop.
Read More
Description: The Snohomish Conservation District crew is based at the county's native plant nursery in Lake Stevens. The crew works on a wide variety of projects including riparian habitat restoration, volunteer supervision, construction projects (fish passage/large wood), fencing projects, outreach workshops/fairs, one or more rain garden/LID project, one NGPA project, one or more agricultural and forestry BMP construction and NRCS practice specification training. Members will complete one-on-one shadowing days with Farm Planners, Engineers, Water Quality, LID and Habitat Restoration Specialists to gain skills and experience in site assessment and design, engineering surveys, landowner education, construction supervision, GIS.
Projected Start Date: October 5
To kick off the program, we want to hear from you-- and you can earn prizes for sharing!
Read MoreKelly and Dan Munro, owners of Grateful Pine Farm, purchased a 17-acre commercial horse property in Snohomish. Learn more about her approach to managing land for horses, and her new commercial horse boarding/training facility.
Read MoreThe Snohomish Conservation District is proud to announce the launch of our new Lawns to Lettuce Program! The goals of this latest effort are to encourage landowners to convert a portion of their lawn to growing edibles, and to highlight landowners who’ve already done so.
Read MoreUSDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service announced today the application deadline for the Environmental Quality Incentives Program in Washington State would come earlier than previous years to account for a stronger focus on conservation planning.
Read MoreThe City of Edmonds is working with the Conservation District and WSU Extension to start a Rain Garden Program to promote the use of rain gardens around the City. As a way to jump start the program, we're organizing a rain garden cluster installation in a neighborhood in Edmonds.
Read MoreRecently, Lyn took advantage of the cost-share program offered through the Stillaguamish River Clean Water District to add two sets of compost bins to her farm. She had one small bin, and had been making use of an area of pasture to hold excess manure from seven horses. It was covered, but far from the barns and difficult to drive up to in winter due to wet ground.
Read MoreThe Snohomish Conservation District recently launched their new ‘Lawns to Lettuce’ program and will be kicking it off with a workshop at The Open Gate Farm on Camano Island on July 18.
Read MoreDownload this great new Tips on Land & Water Management for Puget Sound Rural Living guide.
Read MoreMill Creek residents, take our online survey to learn more and become eligible for a free waterless car wash kit, or a coupon to Shur-kleen for one free car wash.
Read MoreJoin your neighbors in having trees planted along Woods Creek and receive this special Steward sign to proudly display on your property!
Read MoreCongratulations to Liz Abelsen, the first person on Camano Island, for receiving our Sound Horsekeeping sign. This well-deserved honor demonstrates all of the amazing Best Management Practices that Liz has in place on her property to protect water quality, build healthy soils, and create a healthy and happy environment for her mini-horses, chickens, gardens, and abundant wildlife that call this Camano oasis home.
Read More
Thank you to everyone who joined us in Mukilteo on April 1st for our Better Ground Showcase. We enjoyed meeting new people and reconnecting with our friends and partners.
From the talented group of young musicians who helped create the festive atmosphere at the beginning to the dedicated award winners who were honored for their incredible work, it was great to see so many wonderful examples of people celebrating local efforts to plant trees, produce healthy food, protect habitat and keep water clean and healthy for fish.
Everyone seemed to enjoy seeing so many young people being honored, from the environmental youth leaders to an innovative young farmer, we all felt hope for the future. Honoring lifelong environmental leaders like Barbara Brock beside students who are growing food, enhancing habitat and teaching their peers was especially enlightening. We look forward to another great year of working with our partners, residents, schools, and others to create better ground for all. If you would like to view the video about this year’s winners, go to this link: https://youtu.be/ASIOe77E9eY.
Katherine Staberow | Sound Home
Katherine has been a huge driver of restoration and stormwater work on her own property and her neighborhood NGPA. She has led projects with enthusiasm, working cooperatively with this group of over 30 properties. Her initiative has been a huge driver in implementing these conservation efforts, as she has brought great enthusiasm and easy communication. In December, Katherine coordinated a volunteer planting event to kick off restoration activities, with over 20 neighbors coming together to plant over 400 plants!
Q: What motivates you to be a good steward of the land?
A: My parents instilled in me at a young age that it is our responsibility to care for the land that God gave us. I grew up in Cle Elum, where our family regularly enjoyed being outdoors – gardening, camping, hiking, biking and boating – and where my parents taught me how to responsibly care for our own 26 acres of land as well as the wilderness we so much enjoyed. When I moved to Western Washington, I quickly recognized the challenges of urban sprawl. When we purchased our home and became a part of suburbia, my husband and I wholeheartedly agreed that we need to be a part of the solution within urban sprawl, rather than contribute to the problem. We further recognize that being a good steward of our land, both here at home and when we are out enjoying the wilderness, is something we want to teach our son as well. We want him, and many generations to come, to be able to enjoy the beauty of our land and recognize it is our responsibility to see that becomes reality. Together, these have strongly motivated me to be a good steward of our land.
Q: What actions have you taken as a steward that you're most proud of and/or that you feel have made the biggest difference?
A: I am proud of the way my family has made being a steward simply a normal way of life for us. I hope our lifestyle demonstrates to and encourages others that it isn’t complicated or difficult to be a good steward of our land; it simply requires intentional decisions that quickly become a normal, wonderful way to enjoy life. The projects at our home and in our neighborhood on which we have partnered with the Snohomish Conservation District are fantastic examples of this that will make an incredible difference literally right here in our backyard.
If you are doing things like reducing fertilizer and planting native plants, you can earn an 'I Love Lake' sign for your yard. We want everyone to know about your good work and build awareness about this community campaign to reduce algal blooms in our lake.
Not ready to get certified, but want to learn more? Take the Pledge & Get a Free 'I Love Lake' Tote Bag!
We hoped you enjoyed our 30th annual Plant 'Sale-abration' as much as we did.
About 40,660 native trees, shrubs and groundcover plants went home with eager folks, and our classes were a popular new addition.
The Washington Association of Conservation Districts recently held their annual meeting in Cle Elum and presented awards to three individuals and groups from Snohomish County and Camano Island. The Tulalip Tribes, Kristoferson Farm, and Mukilteo teacher Sue Idso were recognized. The annual awards recognize individuals and groups that support conservation districts in their work on natural resource conservation.
The Kristoferson family and Kristoferson Farm won the WACD Wildlife Farm of the Year Award for their conservation and wildlife habitat restoration efforts. The Kristoferson Farm on Camano Island has been in the family since 1921. It’s currently managed as a working forest for small-scale timber harvest, organic hay production, a canopy zip-line tour and event venue. The Tulalip Tribes received the WACD Tribal Partnership Award. The Tribes worked with the Snohomish Conservation District to implement stormwater educational efforts and projects on tribal lands. Terry Williams and the Tribes have also been leaders in establishing and growing the Snohomish County Sustainable Lands Strategy. This collaborative, cross-boundary approach to net gains for both fish and farm producers has provided many opportunities for the Tribes, District, and other partners to secure funding to implement a wide variety of farm/fish/flood projects.
Sue Idso, a fifth grade teacher at Mukilteo Elementary School, received the Educator of the Year Award. With help from habitat specialist Ryan Williams, Sue and her students created an outdoor classroom - a place where teachers of all grades could hold science and language arts classes outside. After the District helped clear brush,
Sue contacted a group of local Eagle Scout candidates to develop and build projects including: a trail network, an amphitheater, a bird blind, and a series of bat boxes. Sue also recruited dozens of volunteers for monthly work parties to remove invasive ivy, blackberry and laurel, which were replaced with native trees and shrubs. The outdoor classroom was ready for the entire school to use in March 2014.
Do you hear the fish jumping for joy? Kids splashing in the creek? Families laughing as they shovel into the sand after clams? Well, hopefully these sounds and sights will become more common in the future – if you’re near Woods Creek, Church Creek or South Skagit Flats.
The ink is still drying on three grant agreements awarded to the Snohomish Conservation District by the Washington State Department of Ecology. These grants will provide essential funding over the next two and a half years so the District can help landowners in Woods Creek (near Monroe) and Church Creek (near Stanwood) watersheds, and the South Skagit Flats (roughly the area north of Stanwood to the Snohomish County line between Skagit Bay and just east of I-5).
Cost-share funding is now available to eligible streamside property owners who want to better manage and contain livestock manure and reduce mud in their pastures by using compost bins and heavy use (sacrifice) areas. This funding will also help eligible streamside landowners plant native trees and shrubs along streams and build fences to keep livestock away from streams. All of these actions will help make Woods Creek, Church Creek and South Skagit Flats safer to play, swim, fish and clam in.
For qualified projects, a field crew is available to help landowners clear blackberry thickets and other non-native weeds along their streamside property, re-plant streambanks with native trees and shrubs, and install fencing as needed. The District will also host a series of workshops in these areas during the next two years to help landowners learn how they can best deal with common land management issues.
The goal of these grants is to reduce pollution in Woods Creek, Church Creek, and south Skagit Bay. Parts of Woods Creek get ‘summer fever’ every year, where the water temperature is too high for fish and other aquatic life to survive. When we get a fever, we can still breathe. But when a creek or river gets a ‘fever’ (any temperature above 61 degrees F), the amount of oxygen in the water decreases, so fish and other water creatures struggle to breathe and stay alive.
If that weren’t enough bad news, during certain times of the year the amount of fecal coliform bacteria in the stream (bacteria found in the poop of warm-blooded animals including humans, dogs, and farm animals) is so high the creek is considered unsafe for humans to swim in, drink, or pursue other recreational activities.
Church Creek and Skagit Bay have the same problem with high amounts of fecal coliform bacteria; during certain times of the year, bacteria levels that are high enough that the creek and bay are considered unsafe for swimming, drinking, and digging and eating shellfish. During the summer, levels of dissolved oxygen in parts of Church Creek are too low for fish and other aquatic critters to survive. In other words, they suffocate to death.
The good news is that over the past several years, many creeks and rivers in Snohomish County have gotten cleaner and cooler thanks to the hard work of many property owners, on-the-ground get-‘er-done organizations, and funders. The grants awarded to the District will help Snohomish County residents continue to make progress toward cleaning up local streams, rivers, Port Susan and Skagit bays, and Puget Sound — making these waters safer for humans, and cooler and healthier for the fish and other creatures that call them home.
By the end of 2016, landowners in the three project areas will have planted about 30 acres of native trees along streams, built several thousand feet of fences to keep livestock away from streams, and will have installed other best management practices on farms that keep bacteria and other pollutants out of the water.
In addition to the landowners who volunteer to complete these cost-share projects, several local partners will provide funding and labor, including the City of Stanwood, Snohomish County Surface Water Management, Washington Conservation Corps, Sound Salmon Solutions, and the Clean Water District Advisory Board (and its rate-payers).
If you’re interested in learning more about these kinds of projects or the cost-share funding available for streamside landowners in the Woods Creek, Church Creek and Skagit Bay areas, please contact Cindy Dittbrenner or Alex Pittman at 425-335-5634, ext 4 or email habitat(at)snohomishcd.org.
Snohomish Conservation District | 528 91st Ave NE, Lake Stevens, WA 98258 | 425-335-5634
