Credit/ Water Tender John Reinke |
The torch of Water Tenders (WT) leadership was passed from President Eric Soshea to Susan Wilkins at the WT Annual Meeting last week. Many of the of the original tenders were present, including a relative of the founder. Leader Terry Lavender and past president Dick Schaetzel were out of town. Gary Smith was present. Debbie Aftebro from Novelty Hill had never attended a WT meeting yet she collects and measures rainwater for Guy Baltzelle's program. She wanted to meet Guy but unfortunately he wasn't at the meeting. Shirley Doolittle-Egerdahl was up front with Susan and Eric. Shirley was once President and is now the Treasurer, replacing John Reinke,who replaced Dick S. One of the new board members, Heather Poe was president and secretary for WT in the Early 2000 - 2005 era (before Susan became a member.) Shirley Doolittle-Egerdahl was also once a president along with five others.
"The Bear Creek Basin is an exceptionally natural and healthy environment for our native salmon runs given that it is so close to a major metropolitan area. We want to direct more community involvement into observing the stream habitat and collecting year-round data (such as rainfall, water temperature, stream flow) across the whole Bear Creek Basin. We also want to carefully monitor land use planning by the local government jurisdictions to encourage preservation and protection of our land and water resources."
A slide show of my daughter and her Key Club/ Bio-Chem classmates restoring the Bear Creek tributary.