Category: Adopt-a-Buffer

Stewardship Partners’ Snoqualmie Strategy efforts continue to make a positive impact in the Snoqualmie Valley with our collaborative approach to conservation and sustainability. It’s been several years since a stakeholder suggested the lofty goal of “building rain gardens in all Snoqualmie Valley schools” at a Green Infrastructure working group session. With a coordinated effort involving multiple partners (The Snoqualmie Tribe, Nature Vision, and Aspect Consulting to name a few) we’ve started to fulfill that vision by installing one rain garden at Carnation Elementary School, with a second one planned for installation in the years to come. With continued support from the Bullitt Foundation, and most recently a King County Flood Control District Flood Reduction Grant, we are leading the charge from gray to green infrastructure.

The Full Circle Farm Demonstration Rain Garden and Carnation Green Infrastructure Integration project is another multi-partner project with a wider reach. It will tie together several efforts throughout the Valley with valued partners who are investing in both a viable economy and an environmentally sustainable future. Our friends at Full Circle Farm will continue their stellar farming and land stewardship practices by installing a large rain garden/bioswale to treat stormwater and agricultural runoff . This project is proposed right next to some of our riparian restoration efforts along Griffin Creek, allowing us to see the full extent of our work at this incredible site. Full Circle Farm will be the first farm in the Snoqualmie Valley that Stewardship Partners will work with to install green infrastructure features!

In addition, we will work with our new partners at Orenda Winery, strategically located across the highway from Full Circle, to perform a green infrastructure assessment in order to help them continue their dedication to sustainable land use practices. We will also work with the City of Carnation to inventory green infrastructure features and provide technical support for future green infrastructure installations as the city makes infrastructure upgrades as a result of increased flooding and other pressures due to ongoing development.

These are just a few examples of how the Snoqualmie Strategy continues to engage local stakeholders in a collaborative and innovative manner. Only by working together and taking action can we ensure future generations have clean air to breathe, fresh water to drink and plenty of healthy local food to eat.

The Snoqualmie Stewardship restoration crew extended their reach recently with a collaborative effort between Capri Hospitality Management, the City of Woodinville, and a few other partners. The crew has always been for hire, but more and more businesses and new partners are approaching us to work on restoration projects, mitigation projects, and collaborative efforts outside our normal routine of riparian restoration on agricultural lands. This recognition is a great way to expand our breadth of work while maintaining our focus on providing clean water, healthy habitat, and engaged community partners.

This September they worked to stabilize nearly 200 feet of stream bank on the property of the new Hampton Inn and Suites in Woodinville, WA. This project offered the crew a chance to hone their bioengineering skills by stabilizing a steep and challenging bank along a tributary of Little Bear Creek, a creek historically known for salmon spawning.

As Stewardship Partners gains this new knowledge and expertise, expanding our services offered to landowners, businesses, and other organizations/agencies, the Snoqualmie Stewardship Restoration crew is available to work on slope/bank stabilization, volunteer event management, riparian habitat restoration, wetland restoration, upland forest restoration, implementing green infrastructure features such as rain gardens, and mitigation projects.

Additionally, the entire Stewardship Partners’ staff is available to be hired for consultation and opportunity assessments, project design, mitigation design, permitting assistance, implementation, and maintenance. Our full-time restoration crew and Director of Ecological Restoration combined have over 25 years of experience providing these services to landowners and communities and have restored over 72 acres of degraded habitat. We are excited to share our expertise, muscle, and passion with a wider audience in the years to come!

Partnership is a central characteristic of Stewardship Partners’ core values and is one of the reasons why our work has such wide-ranging impact. A great example of partnership is our recent collaboration with Aspect Consulting  to build the Carnation Elementary School Rain Garden.

In the summer of 2017, Owen Reese, a Water Resources Engineer with Aspect Consulting, contacted Stewardship Partners offering design, project management, and hands-on construction expertise for any volunteer opportunities with our 12,000 Rain Gardens program. The Carnation Elementary School Rain Garden provided the perfect project to exercise this exciting partnership.

Within a month of Owen’s first email, Aspect conducted a detailed soil analysis and sent us a professional garden design and planting plan, which were quickly approved by both school administrators and the school district. Aspect Consulting’s technical expertise immensely helps to complete projects quickly and efficiently. The Aspect team then returned a few months later to install this new rain garden, joining even more volunteers from the Carnation Elementary School Environmental Club. Today, the rain garden flourishes. From this successful rain garden project, we recently heard that that the King County Flood Control District agreed to fund a second rain garden at Carnation Elementary School through their Flood Reduction Fund. We’re thrilled to build this second rain garden and our partners at Aspect Consulting are already on-board to help!

But Aspect Consulting’s professional assistance, volunteering, and pro-bono work doesn’t stop at rain gardens. Later this fall, we are teaming up with Aspect at Carnation Farms to engage their staff in an Adopt-a-Buffer – planting native trees and shrubs on one of our biggest restoration sites along the Snoqualmie River.

Inspired? You can help, too! Visit our volunteer calendar to sign up for an event that fits your schedule. Our volunteer events are a great way to be a stewardship partner and are fun for the whole family!