Where the Water Returns: Rebuilding a Creek, One BDA at a Time скачать в хорошем качестве

Where the Water Returns: Rebuilding a Creek, One BDA at a Time

When Kent Smith's family bought their Gilliam County property in 1992, the canyon was barren - overgrazed, treeless and dominated by sagebrush and cheatgrass. Inspired by a magazine article on riparian restoration, Smith enrolled in the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service’s (NRCS) Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP), building fencing, planting thousands of trees and hand-watering young seedlings with his family each summer. The Gilliam Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD) helped Smith expand on his early conservation work, installing Beaver Dam Analogs (BDAs) that help raise the water table, slow flows, widen the floodplain and ultimately attract real beavers back to the creek. Today, perennial water still flows into late summer, a major achievement in this dry region. Additional NRCS projects to include spring development and juniper removal further boosted water availability and habitat health. For Smith, conservation has evolved from a pastime into a purpose, transforming degraded land into thriving habitat and inspiring others to restore their own piece of the watershed.