Wallowa-Whitman National Forest, Grande Ronde Model Watershed hosting volunteer event

Published 6:00 pm Monday, August 22, 2022

LA GRANDE — The Wallowa-Whitman National Forest and the Grande Ronde Model Watershed are teaming up to celebrate National Public Lands Day on Saturday, Sept. 24.

The two organizations are hosting Public Lands Day at Bird Track Springs Restoration Site along the Grande Ronde River, about 14 miles southwest of La Grande.

The event will take place from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. The public is invited to engage in hands-on projects including trail maintenance, monitoring water quality, trash removal and art and storytelling activities. Free transportation to the event is available. A bus will depart at 8:30 a.m. from the Community Stadium parking lot. The bus will return at 1 p.m.

National Public Lands Day is celebrated annually across the nation on the fourth Saturday of September. Started by the National Environmental Education Foundation, NPLD is the nation’s largest single-day volunteer event for public lands, which include city parks to national parks and forests.

The Grande Ronde subbasin is a tributary to the Snake River and part of the Columbia River basin. The watershed sustains thousands of acres of forested and canyon lands throughout Northeast Oregon on public and private property and is home to spring Chinook salmon, summer steelhead, bull trout, resident trout and other native fish species along with elk, deer, river otters, great gray owls, goshawks, bald eagles and many other wildlife species.

The long-term restoration vision for the Bird Track Springs Fish Habitat Enhancement Project is to improve physical and ecological processes by rehabilitating and restoring the river channel and floodplain to achieve immediate and long-term benefits to chinook, steelhead and bull trout at all life stages.