Genesee Creek Workday
On October 16, 2010, over 40 volunteers from SEWTU, the Gary Borger Chapter of TU, Oak Brook TU, and most prominently Carroll University, worked at Genesee Creek, just south of Genesee Depot, Wisconsin.
At the workday, and under the leadership of Professor Jason Freund, volunteers split into three groups. The first group build wooden boardwalks which were placed throughout low lying areas of the field station in order to increase walkability.
The second group forded the mighty Genesee, and worked removing invasive buckthorn from the stream's corridor. The buckthorn crowds the river, and its removal allows native plants to take hold and thrive, and also opens the stream to more sunlight. Finally, removal of the buckthorn causes a slightly lesser amount of leaves to fall and cause sedimentation in the creek.
The third group, piggy backing on the work of the second (and composed primarily of Carroll University students) worked setting up testing and monitoring stations. These stations will examine the impact of buckthorn and stream corridor vegitation upon the stream, versus non-impacted control areas. One facet of this work will be to examine the effect of less sedimentation in the stream and upon its microbiology.
After the workday, volunteers were provided a free bratwurst lunch by SEWTU, and had plenty of time for socializing and telling completely untrue fishing stories about the season just passed.
This workday was a complete success in that SEWTU mobilized a healthy crew of volunteers, and some truly interesting scientific work came about as a result. Thanks to everyone for pitching in, and SEWTU looks forward to continuing to work with Carroll University and on Genesee Creek.
