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Clackamas Water Environment Services (WES) works to keep water clean for people, wildlife, and the environment. Teaching students how to protect their local watersheds is an important part of that work.
Recently, WES staff took part in the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s (ODFW) Fish Eggs to Fry program. The program teaches students about the salmon life cycle. WES staff delivered hundreds of Chinook salmon eggs to classroom aquariums and talked with students about water quality and the need for healthy salmon habitat.
Students will care for the eggs as they hatch and grow into young salmon called fry. Once the fish are ready, students will release them into the river where the eggs came from.
The program helps students understand that healthy salmon need clean water. They also learn how everyday choices can affect rivers, streams, and wildlife. For example, rain can wash pollution from streets, sidewalks, and yards into storm drains and nearby streams. Students learned an important lesson, If it’s on the ground, it’s in the water. Keeping pollution out of our waterways helps protect salmon and other wildlife.
WES Education and Outreach Coordinator Jim Cartan took part in his first egg delivery and shared why the program matters:
“The Fish Eggs to Fry program gives WES a chance to connect with young people and help them share what they learn with their families and communities. ODFW, Association of Northwest Steelheaders, National Wildlife Federation and WES are helping students connect with the Clackamas and Willamette River Watersheds and understand how sewer systems, everyday choices, and healthy ecosystems are linked.”
Visit WES’s Watershed Protection program to learn more about how our Surface Water Management Program protects water quality with programs to prevent, minimize, and reduce pollution in our rivers, streams and wetlands caused by urban stormwater runoff.
