Planting for Water Quality
This spring GVLT staff and volunteers are planting native vegetation along rivers, streams, and ponds on conserved properties to improve and create vegetation buffers. Establishing these lush, green vegetation buffers helps reduce sediment and nutrient runoff into streams and rivers. The streamside vegetation also stabilizes the streambank and prevents erosion, regulates the floodwater velocity, and provides critical wildlife habitat. All of our native plants come from the Montana Conservation Seedling Nursery in Missoula. We’ve planted six species including native willows, cottonwoods, aspen, chokecherry, buffaloberry, alder and more.
Our volunteers this spring have braved some gnarly weather to help steward our valley’s most precious open spaces. And we’re grateful to the landowners who have taken the step to conserve their land, and now work hard alongside GVLT to maintain and improve the natural resources.