Home » Blogs » garrett's blog

garrett's blog

1982 - SCA Work Crew - Old Faithful District, Yellowstone

Submitted by garrett on Wed, 05/27/2009 - 13:50

From the SCA Facebook Group.

Added by Kelly Smith to the group "The Student Conservation Association" from the album "Youth Programs"

This is the twenty-ninth entry in our ongoing series, Photograph Fantastique, in which we count down 50 days until the Unofficial Official Start of High Season for conservation programs.

Earth Day - Manchester, NH

Submitted by garrett on Mon, 04/20/2009 - 09:54

SCA, in partnership with the city of Manchester, hosted an adopt-a-block cleanup and a celebration in Veteran's Park.

Claremont NH Earth Day Clean-Up

Submitted by garrett on Sat, 04/18/2009 - 16:16

The clean-up took place in Wednesday, April 15, 2009. SCA teamed up with Sullivan County ATV Club and Stevens High School to clean up a mile lone section of the Sugar River Trail. The clean-up was a huge success and we easily filled one large dumpster, and could have filled three more, so we had to stack it up in bags all around the dumpster. See the photos below for more!

MLK Day 2010 Highlights

Submitted by garrett on Tue, 04/14/2009 - 11:47

Thanks to everyone who came out to Kingman and Heritage Islands and made for an incredibly successful day!

Over 80 volunteers, SCA alumni and staff hauled away bulging bags of litter, the remains of a dilapidated birdhouse (which had to be demolished with sledgehammers first!), invasive plants, and re-routed a section of newly-built trail out of some wet areas. Without volunteer efforts like this, the island would be a dumping ground again. Thank you so much for caring!

Photos from the event are posted on SCA's Flickr page.

If you want to learn more about Kingman and Heritage Islands and how you can get involved in further volunteer efforts, visit http://www.kingmanisland.org/

Phragmites Flattening Project at Iona Island at Bear Mountain State Park

Submitted by garrett on Wed, 04/08/2009 - 13:13

By Marnie Miller-Keas

Phragmites Flattening Project at Iona Island at Bear Mountain State Park

Last fall 10 acres of Phragmites australis, an invasive plant also known as common reed, was sprayed with herbicide in attempts to reclaim Iona Marsh with cattail and other native plants. Extensive bird surveys have been done over the past years and as Phragmites has increased in dominance, bird species richness has decreased. Species like the green heron and least bittern were not uncommon sites at Iona, but it is suspected that the dense stands of invading Phragmites have influenced their departure.

The 10 acres that were sprayed last year are dead and need to be flattened in order to survey for any new growth. Any new Phragmites stalks will be individually sprayed with herbicide again this coming fall, and hopefully most of the new growth will be cattail. To flatten these giant stalks we used man (and woman) power; a group of 15 volunteers were able to smash down roughly 2 acres a couple weeks ago. Two main methods used were 4ft. boards with rope for handles (crop circle method) and two huge cable spools pushed by 3-4 people. The spools were very effective but require a lot of strength. By the end of the day at our last flattening event everyone had their own method of flattening: throwing things at it, laying down into it... however labor intensive, it was fun.