This Watershed News is provided in partnership with UM Watershed Health Clinic.
Find more information on MWCC's Partnership Program here.
What's in your Watershed?
MWCC Photo Contest
The Montana Watershed Coordination Council is seeking photos for our 2021 State of the Watersheds Report (check out our 2019 report here), and we thought this would be a great opportunity for us to share some of your best photos from around the Treasure State.
We welcome you to submit your most scenic shots of Montana’s outdoors, as well as the people who work to maintain our land and water resources.
Starting October 1st, we’ll share your photos on the MWCC Facebook page for your peers, colleagues, friends, and neighbors to vote on their favorite images. We’ll then display the top photos in a slideshow as part of the Summit to Stream 2020 conference. Additionally, MWCC will select some photos to include in our 2021 State of the Watersheds Report being released this winter.
What are we looking for? We’re inviting you to submit photos that capture all of Montana’s treasured landscapes and conservation activities (e.g., agricultural operations, outdoor recreation, rivers and lakes, rangelands, wetlands, and conservation/restoration implementation). Furthermore, we’re
particularly interested in photos that feature drought and water management activities, community development and land use, and forest management and wildfire.
How do you submit? Send up to THREE images to photos@mtwatersheds.org by 5:00pm on Tuesday, September 29th
What will you receive? By submitting photos, you have the opportunity for your images to be selected in the 2021 State of the Watersheds Report, with your name credited as the photographer. Additionally, top ranked photos will appear in a virtual slideshow the morning of October 16th before the final day of the Summit to Stream conference.
Hold Back the Snowpack
One of our new MWCC Water Committee members, Valerie Kurth has written an interesting and timely piece on how to "promote nature's intrinsic ability to store water." Valerie highlights the different approaches to water storage, including costs and benefits, in her blog 'Storing Water Naturally in Montana.'
For an example of natural water storage, check out the Big Hole Watershed Committee's new 'Hold Back the Snow Pack' video.
The Cart before the Horse-NRCS Series
The Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) provides farmers and ranchers with technical and financial assistance to begin and maintain conservation efforts on their property. To assess these efforts and to help landowners prepare their applications for assistance, NRCS recently developed the Conservation Assessment Ranking Tool (CART). To find out how this new tool works, join NRCS staff for a three-part webinar series that will provide an overview of CART, an example of an application, and a deeper look into the science behind the tool. The series, sponsored by NRCS and the National Center for Appropriate Technology (NCAT) and its ATTRA Sustainable Agriculture Program, begins on Thursday, September 17th. More information and links to registration for all three parts can be found here.
Michael grew up in central Ohio and attended Harvard University for his BA in Philosophy and PhD in Public Policy. He served in the Peace Corps in Nepal. His professional career included work on long-term environmental and educational programs in Pakistan, Nepal, the Philippines, Russia, and Macedonia. In the US, Michael worked for Room to Read and Mercy Corps, non-profit organizations that strive to improve education and living conditions in the developing world. The purchase of a lakeside summer cabin in Bigfork in 2005 has since evolved into full-time Rocky Mountain living. Michael became Swan Lakers President in July 2020; one of his goals is to expand the number of young people who are actively involved in the organization, using social media to help achieve this objective. Michael enjoys working with numbers; he coined the word “numbulary” to describe our number-vocabularies, the numbers that we know and use in everyday life.
