Our next regular meeting is Thursday, May 19th, 7:00 PM at Jackson's Sports Bar at 48th and Tieton in Yakima. We meet in their banquet room.

Our Speaker for May is Melissa Babik, Project Manager/ Wildlife Biologist with the Mid-Columbia Fisheries Enhancement Group (MCF). She will be speaking to us abopt their Adopt a Stream Projects.

MCF holds a Dept of Ecology grant to mobilize community members and help them adopt and cleanup urban streams as they run through Ellensburg. We ask groups to host 2 clean up events per year for a minimum of 2 years (our grant deliverable), but we hope that the groups continue with their stewardship on their own after our grant funds have been exhausted.

 MCF will assign reaches of streams, contact landowners, provide all the supplies (gloves, bags, safety vests, etc.), and dispose of collected garbage. To recognize the group’s commitment to improving water quality for salmon we will install an aluminum sign in a visible location along the reach with the group’s name (similar to the adopt-a-highway).