another wonderful read. ENJOY!

http://outside.away.com/outside/destinations/200710/swimming-across-the-mississippi-river-1.html

Greater Downtown Dayton Plan

Check out this video about Dayton!

Clifton Gorge!

Yesterday Mclean, Jason, Maggie, Sarah, AJ, Dan and Heidi Mcgrew and I went hiking at Clifton Gorge to scope out possible spots for River Leadership Curriculum fieldtrips and also generate ideas for the all of the modules! It's a very pretty place to hike!

"Woman with a cause: Mimi Hughes will try to swim the length of the Ohio River to raise awareness about women's issues"

Pretty cool story:

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10136/1058635-139.stm?cmpid=sports.xml

North Fork Massie Creek Stream Restoration Project

Jason and I went to the North Fork Massie Creek Stream Restoration site. The restoration project was done to improve water quality and habitat for streams. “Natural channel design is used to create a stable stream channel that is self-maintaining.” (From handout received at tour). Restoration included re-digging curves into streams and creating “layers” along the banks, thus improving vegetation and sediment flow. “This approach creates a stable channel, reduces bank erosion, improves the flow capacity of the stream, reduces the need for ongoing maintenance and improves stream habitat and water quality.” The budget for this project was $1,705,500 for a 2.2 mile strip of the creek. The pictures show the added rocks. The rocks are meant to focus the flow of the water to the center of the creek to prevent erosion of the banks. Very cool!

Interesting Article/Book

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126833795

I just thought that this was interesting and maybe y'all would want to read it too.

I miss you all, and I hope that your summers are commencing well.

Yours,

Nolan

Safety Stews!

A couple weeks ago Alex and I had swift water rescue training on Paint Creek. We spent the entire weekend submerged in 52 degree water, but we learned a lot! As part of our grant from the Greater Dayton Conservation Fund, we will continue to get more stews certified.

Now enjoy some funny pictures from our training...