SPSSEG Making a Difference...With Your Help!

How Can You Help?

Of course on the ground projects, such as ensuring that salmon streams are fitted with acceptable culverts or installing a salmon ladder to open up miles of stream are actions that directly enhance salmon survival. But people often ask us what they can do to help enhance local salmon populations. The following information is a collection of tips and guidelines to help YOU find a way to directly contribute to the future of Pacific Northwest salmon stocks and to ultimately MAKE A DIFFERENCE.

  • Volunteer for Salmon Enhancement and Restoration projects - read about typical projects that are possible through SPSSEG and our salmon restoration partners.
  • Be a Salmon Friendly Gardener - learn about actions you can take to be a salmon friendly gardener. Read about, "Sound Gardens Save Salmon (SGSS)" our new program to educate our community about the importance of environmentally friendly gardening.
  • Assist within the SPSSEG Educational Division - We welcome individuals that wish t help at our outreach events or work as docents at Kennedy Creek Salmon Trail.
  • Lend a hand with our never ending list of Administrative or Membership Related Tasks - You never know what we may need help with in the main office! Give us a call.
  • Live Green - This section includes extensive information about options for environmentally friendly cleaning solutions, 10 simple ways to start making a difference, details about how to measure your ecological footprint, information about native plant species, and links to both the salmon challenge game and the watershed game.
  • Get informed - And finally, getting informed about what is being done in the world of salmon recovery will also leave you educated and in action. Here we provide links to important documents from the Puget Sound Partnership. the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, and the Puget Sound Action Team.

VOLUNTEER with SPSSEG (or other salmon friendly group) and start making a difference TODAY!

Becoming a fish friendly volunteer is a big step toward salmon restoration. As a community-based salmon enhancement group, we rely on people like you to help us in our efforts to identify and remove barriers to salmon migration. Over the course of the year, there are typically several projects where we can use your help. Maybe a morning helping us plant native plants at a newly completed project site might appeal to you. Better yet, how about tossing a few hundred salmon carcasses back into a stream that is in need of a mineral and nutrient boost. All good fun and for a great cause!

Typical types of volunteer projects we offer:

  • Planting native plant species at project sites
  • Project maintenance (e.g. weeding, removing nursery plant supports)
  • Salmon carcass distribution-replenish critical minerals and nutrients back into the creeks and rivers

Check here for a current list of SPSSEG volunteer Projects

And be sure to check with these other salmon friendly groups that can always use some community elbow grease in the wheel of salmon recovery...just one more area where YOU can make a difference:

How to Be a Salmon Friendly Gardener

There is no better neighbor than a salmon. And being residents of the Pacific Northwest, there is bound to be a salmon moving into or out of a water body near you! To be sure that salmon find their homes in livable condition, they depend on us to practice landscaping and gardening techniques that keep silt, erosion, and contaminates out of their neighborhoods.

It may not be your normal train of thought but gardens, whether two feet or two miles from a stream or the Sound, can heavily influence the quality of life for salmon. Whatever runs off your property will end up UNTREATED in your neighborhood storm drain. Fertilizer residues are particularly harmful to young salmon. Gardens that are poorly designed and cared for can prevent run off and ensure ample clean water for salmon.

For a detailed look at, "How to Be a Salmon Friendly Gardener," including specific gardening practices, choosing the right pants, smart watering techniques, natural pest, insect, weed, and disease control, how to naturally protect and reinforce shorelines, storm drain stenciling ideas, and information on becoming a Creek Steward visit Salmon Friendly Gardening at the Seattle Public Utilities web site.

King county also has this page with an extensive collection of yard and garden tips that will make you live a greener, more salmon friendly life.

This document will definitely help get the bugs out...the salmon-friendly way. The Washington Toxics Coalition and Northwest coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides have created this Pdf document about Salmon-friendly Pest Management.

In the market for a new home? How about a salmon-friendly home? This pdf document explains some of the things that you should consider when shopping for or building a fish-friendly home.

BONUS - Salmon friendly gardens keep water clean and protect salmon habitat. And here is added incentive...they save you time and money!

SPSSEG, along with Jacqui Elliott of Bioscience Education and Research Consulting (BERC) and Sheila Gentler of Sage Garden Designs, recently received a City of Tacoma Make a Splash Grant to develop a program to educate the community about issues relating to salmon friendly gardening. Their program, "Sound Gardens Save Salmon" will begin late this Fall in the Tacoma School District. Here is the SGSS mascot. This incredible Garden Cheyenne Hallie painstakingly paper mached and decoupaged almost 300 individual images of garden plants and animals to serve as the program mascot. With this visual, people can't help but ask how are salmon and gardens connected? Get the picture?

Help Educate Your Community

Feel more like offering a hand through our educational efforts. We can always use help with spreading our message at locals schools and festivals. We provide the training and lesson plan guidelines. All we need from you is your enthusiasm for learning and a desire to spread the message that we stand for salmon! One area where we need educational volunteers is with our Kennedy Creek Salmon Trail Docent Program. These amazing volunteers bring an exciting component to an already spectacular event that you will not want to miss. You have never seen salmon spawn like this! Come be part of the team that help us educate the people about salmon in South Puget Sound. Contact our Trail Coordinator, Karin Strelioff, at the Mason Conservation District if you are able to be part of this year's KCreek Trail Education Team.

Office Elves Anyone?

An extra hand with general office operations is also always appreciated. Just call and let us know that you are free to help with annual meeting planning, web site maintenance, membership relations, or general office operations.

Living Green Can Make a DIfference

Choosing to live green means protecting your local aquatic environment. From the chemicals that you use in your home, to the fertilizer in your garden YOU can make a difference in your community. Click here to see a list of 25 salmon friendly cleaning solutions that you can use in your home or office. Try this list of the 10 ways to make a difference in your environment and help you maintain a commitment to green living. This pdf document by the Oregon Plan is an extensive collection of less toxic household solutions for people and salmon.

Be sure to see The Washington Invasive Species Coalition's publication on the smart choice for local gardening. Native plants are available from the Thurston Conservation District's Annual Native Plant Sale. And don't forget to watch out for those aquatic invasives if you are going to really make a difference in protecting Washington's native waters.

And if you are looking for a facility to treat, store, dispose of or recycle hazardous materials then you will want to check out this web site at the Washington Department of Ecology's Hazardous wastes and Toxics Reduction Program. Here you will find a list of the companies in the Tacoma and Seattle area that can help you properly dispose of hazardous chemicals. Now how about measuring your ecological footprint. Visit this site, by Redefining Progress, for a detailed look at Ecological Footprint; What it is and how to measure it.

So how about playing an online game to see just how environmentally savvy you are? Here you can play King County's Salmon Challenge Game and see just how your environmental decisions impacts salmon and their environment. Ready for a look at how you can manage an entire watershed to conserve water and all organisms that depend on this precious commodity? Play the Watershed Game, an online game developed by Distance Learning and Educational Web Adventures.

Get Informed

To ensure that you are doing all you can toward salmon recovery in the South Puget Sound visit the Puget Sound Partnership's web site for a wealth of information from what the problems are, what is being done at the state and local level to facilitate salmon recovery. Puget Sound Partnership also has a section on what you can do to help...Volunteer, conserve water, and do all you can to help keep water cool and clean. Learn more about each of these ideas by visiting this site.

And just to simplify things for you, the Puget Sound Action Team offers Puget Sound Residents this list of 10 Simple Things You Can Do Right now!

The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife produced a detailed guide on how people can help salmon. Their 2000 publication,"Salmon Smart. A Guide to Help People Help Salmon" provides an introduction to Salmon Recovery projects and activities and an overview of how people can get involved. Head to this link to review WDFW's Salmon Smart guide. Click here to download a copy now!

Getting informed and learn all you can about salmon recovery, watershed health, and what you can be doing in your own home and community will also leave you motivated to do more and see that every action counts.

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