3 Stories About One Truckee River’s Impact in 2024
At One Truckee River, this past year has been a busy one. We’ve been enthusiastically collaborating with our coalition partners to demonstrate River-Friendly Living practices, doing restorative vegetation management along the Truckee’s riverbanks, improving restroom access downtown, and more. On a more personal level, we’ve been speaking with community members who’ve been impacted by these key projects – and can’t wait to share their stories with you! Keep reading for our 3 favorite reflections from 2024!
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Meet Ian Redinbaugh: Workforce Development Supervisor
We’re excited to share that our Truckee River Urban Trees Workforce Development Program is well underway! Our 5-person crew is busy removing invasives and cleaning up the Truckee’s riverbank – while providing much-needed career training opportunities for at-risk marginalized local residents. Leading the effort is Ian Redinbaugh, our Workforce Development Supervisor. Once unhoused and struggling with addiction himself, today Ian dedicates his work to helping people better their lives…
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Making a Stink About Public Restrooms
It’s not something most of us like to think about…but when public restrooms are tough to come by, nature still will call. That can have unfortunate consequences, impacting everything from our enjoyment of public spaces, to our water quality, to our sense of human decency. Here’s how the new Loos are making a difference along the Truckee River:
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The Truckee River Urban Tree Workforce Program
In downtown Reno, urban disadvantaged communities lack access to shady outdoor public spaces. One Truckee River is setting out to change this, pairing our restorative efforts with workforce development. In doing so, we’ll cool the river trail pavement, increase enjoyment of public spaces, and create a healthier living environment, both for Northern Nevada families and local wildlife.
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Community-Led Research Along the Truckee River’s Urban Corridor in Nevada
Working with community stakeholders from many diverse backgrounds is a key strategy for protecting and enhancing just about any urban river. Here in Nevada, the Truckee is no exception. That’s why One Truckee River set out to engage community members more deeply along a degraded stretch of the Truckee River east of downtown Reno - using the Community-Led Research Model
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2023 One Truckee River Survey – The Results Are In!
For the third consecutive year, One Truckee River surveyed our Northern Nevada community about how residents have been using the Truckee River, their knowledge of it, and areas they’d like to see improved. These surveys are important, both for the general feedback we receive and for the baseline data we’re collecting, which is starting to show year-over-year trends. Ready to see our top takeaways from 2023??
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Clean Up Our Parks & Riverbanks…With Critter-Proof Cans
To reduce litter in our community, One Truckee River plans to increase the number of trash bins in parks along the Truckee River and replace existing trash receptacles with animal resistant models.
Here’s how YOU can help:
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What's New at One Truckee River?
As we approach the year’s end, One Truckee River invites you to join us in celebrating our progress towards protecting the Truckee River!
Rounding out 2023, we’re getting ready to “break dirt” on our first urban riverbank restoration project, welcoming 6 new members to our Partnership Council, and have refreshed our website to include new resources encouraging Northern Nevadans to enjoy everything our local waterway has to offer.
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How to Design and Install a Mini Meadow
A mini meadow is just what it sounds like - a miniature meadow for your yard. They are a small depression designed to capture rainwater that flows off your roof via downspouts and sink it into the ground. In many places in the world, these features are referred to as rain gardens. But here in the Truckee Meadows, we think it’s more appropriate to call them ‘Mini Meadows’ because they mimic the natural meadows and seasonal wetlands that once covered large portions of the Reno/Sparks area.
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Native Plant Alternatives for 5 Common Landscaping Plants
River-Friendly Yards seek to protect the Truckee River from afar, both by using water wisely and by reducing pollutants that could flow down the storm drain and into the river. We can achieve both of these goals by using more native plants in our yards.
Native plants are adapted to our local climate and soils. This means that they usually require less water and fertilizers than many common landscaping plants. If you incorporate them into your yard, that can save you money on your water bill and reduce the potential for fertilizers and pesticides washing down the storm drain. They also provide more habitat and food resources for local wildlife and pollinators.
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NATIVES MATTER
Nonnative plants take up space and resources that would otherwise go to native plants, breaking down local ecological connections and food webs. Native birds depend on insects to feed their babies, and many native insects cannot sustain life from nonnative plants they haven’t evolved to eat. Because nonnative plants don’t do as good a job feeding native insects, this leads to less food for baby birds and biodiversity loss in urban and suburban areas.
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Algae Blooms in Our Waterways: 3 Tips for Prevention
As late summer approaches, you might notice more news popping up about toxic algae blooms. From Washington to Utah to Vermont, algae blooms were all over the news last summer and this summer’s drought conditions could lead to prime conditions again this year.
Waters across the U.S. are seeing higher incidents of algae blooms, and the Eastern Sierra is no exception. Down south, we saw algae blooms in Crowley Lake near Bishop and Bridgeport Reservoir. In the north, the Truckee River watershed had algae blooms at Virginia Lake in Reno and at Pyramid Lake. These algae blooms prompted local water quality officials and health departments to issue warnings to avoid swimming and recreating in these waterways due to health risks.
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10 Reasons to Consider Drip Irrigation
Water is our most precious and dwindling natural resource. And here in the high desert, we don’t get much of it. Nevada is the nation’s driest state, “with statewide annual average (1895–2020) precipitation only 10.2 inches. Temperatures in Nevada are 2.4 degrees hotter since the early 20th century and rising still, we will see declines in average annual snowpack, directly affecting our freshwater supply.” (NOAA)
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Spring Firescaping Tips for a Safe Home and Healthy River
Sift through the Cal Fire website, and you’ll see at the bottom of the page their offer of a short and to-the-point “2022 Fire Season Outlook.” Doesn’t look very good:
“Extended dryness originating from January is expected to continue into the spring with little precipitation leaving most of the state in moderate to extreme drought conditions prior to summer. These continued dry conditions with above normal temperatures through Spring will leave fuel moisture levels lower than normal, increasing the potential for wildland fire activity.”
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WITCH’S BREW: DEMYSTIFYING THE SOIL FOOD WEB, COMPOST TEAS AND EXTRACTS
If you get to talking with a soil, plant, or farming nerd about their craft there is a solid chance that the terms “soil food web,” “compost tea” or “compost extract” will come up. Though they may sound a bit distasteful, even witchy, they are definitely worth looking into as they provide a great service to plants and soils. Think of them as the ultimate super food for your garden ecosystem.
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Calling All Pollinators: 5 Tips to Increase Pollinator Habitat in Your Yard
“Think globally, act locally.” This popular phrase, first coined by Scottish city planner and conservationist Patrick Geddes in 1915, could not be more germane to these times we are living in. Flip on the news and you will undoubtedly learn of the latest environmental catastrophe and its negative impacts: from hurricanes and tornadoes to wildfires and droughts. It can be overwhelming, to say the least, and can leave one feeling hopeless and helpless when it comes to “saving the environment.”
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Serious About Sediments
Have you heard of the Keep Tahoe Blue Campaign? If you answered, “Yes”, then you probably also know that one of the pollutants that affects Lake Tahoe’s world-renowned clarity is sediments. But sediments don’t just affect Lake Tahoe. They are also a pollutant of concern throughout the entire Truckee River Watershed and affect the Truckee River too!
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Fall Pest Prevention Blog
Fall is the time of year when a lot of garden pests try to seek shelter for the winter. Unfortunately, they often consider our homes as an ideal over-wintering option. From mice to spiders to box elder bugs, everyone seems to invade when the temperatures start to drop in the Truckee Meadows.
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