New Rogue River "Green Team" gets to work

The Green Team takes a look at a prairie restoration site at Luton Park.

By Jamie Vaughn 

June 8 was the first day of work for the newly hired Rogue River Green Team, a group of eight high school students from throughout the watershed that will install and maintain green infrastructure practices in their local community through Trout Unlimited’s Rogue River Home Rivers Initiative in Michigan.

The students will plant riparian buffers along trout streams, weed existing rain gardens, work in a native green house and take classes with a biology professor from Calvin College.

The Rogue River Green Team is a replication of a very successful pilot program of the Plaster Creek Stewards, housed at Calvin College, working to restore health and beauty to the Plaster Creek watershed. The Plaster Creek watershed, which is south of the Rogue River, is highly urbanized. Plaster Creek, a former trout stream, is now known as the most polluted stream in West Michigan and is unfit for partial body contact due to high levels of E. coli.  

These two sub-watersheds of the Lower Grand have very different demographics and environmental conditions. Combining work crews of students from the urban and downstream Plaster Creek watershed and the more suburban and upstream Rogue River Watershed will address environmental justice issues and provide opportunities for comparative learning with respect to upstream-downstream relationships.

Both Green Teams are funded by an EPA Urban Waters grant for the next two years, allowing a total of 32 students to receive job training in green infrastructure. The Rogue River Home Rivers Initiative is looking forward to getting a lot of on-the-ground restoration projects completed with the help of the Green Team in addition to teaching the youth about the importance of quality, cold water trout fisheries in Michigan.

The Rogue River Home Rivers Initiative Project is funded by the Frey Foundation, the Grand Rapids Community Foundation, the Wege Foundation, the Wolverine World Wide Foundation, and the Schrems West Michigan Trout Unlimited.

Jamie Vaughn is Trout Unlimited's Rogue River Home Rivers Initiative Coordinator.