A group takes part in a field trip hosted by SEAWA on Wednesday. The organization has been working on an area of Seven Persons Creek to restore it.--SUBMITTED PHOTO
mcranker@medicinehatnews.com@mocranker
The South East Alberta Watershed Alliance held a field trip Wednesday to educate participants about a few projects the group has been working on.
The field trip group went up 63 kilometres along Seven Persons Creek near Township Road 104 to see the area that SEAWA has been working on.
The organization has planted 536 shrubs and trees near the creek to keep the area in good health.
“A healthy riparian area needs native woody vegetation,” said executive director Marilou Montemayor. “This area we visited was lacking in that vegetation, so we planted a lot.
“We spent a lot of time there today and the area looks good.”
Another thing the group was working on was the invasive weed, leafy spurge.
“The city has brought in goats to Police Point Park to deal with this – at our site we don’t use goats,” said Montemayor. “Our site is very close to the creek and the goats aren’t appropriate for that.
“We set up different experiments in that area to try and control the leafy spurge without chemicals.”
Montemayor says the group tried a few different things with the leafy spurge.
“We dug out the leafy spurge roots and planted shrubs there,” she said. “We’ll have the results at the end of the season to see how this worked.
“We also worked with sagebrush, because it may be able to help control the leafy spurge.”
Montemayor says it was a great day of learning in the area.
