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Follow along as Alliance staff member, Laura Todd, paddles all 444 miles of the Main Branch of the Susquehanna River with her father, Mark. Starting in June 2022 in Cooperstown, New York, the pair began kayaking down the river to the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay at Havre de Grace, Maryland.
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We had a great time getting together with some of our existing Riparian Rangers at Lancaster County Central Park! It was a great opportunity to have our volunteers meet in person to discuss the rewards and challenges that come with reforestation efforts and to celebrate their achievements in helping young forests get established.
We are having quite the growth spurt here at the Alliance. We’ve added nine new staff members to our team since April 2022! Read on to learn more about each of these passionate new employees and hear how they will help us increase our impact.
The Alliance and our friends at Digital Ink won a Web Excellence award in the “Website — Environmental Awareness” category. Learn more about our work with Digital Ink and what this award means to our teams.
It can be easy to forget where our food comes from and the work that goes into making that food (and that it doesn’t just appear in a grocery store). In a similar way, it can be easy to ignore where the native seed mixes we purchase come from. In the era of online shopping, it just takes a few clicks to have a nice sack of native wildflower seed mix delivered to our doors, but of course, much more work goes into the process of making sure there are enough native seeds to go around!
In the early 2000s, I grew up kayaking, hiking, and rowing on and along the Potomac River. I remember feeling lucky to have access to my local river. I enjoyed watching the herons perch along the rocky banks, and paddling around the DC monuments after school with my friends and classmates. The river provided an incalculable benefit to living in this area.
Why are riparian buffers important? Riparian buffers are important because they reduce erosion, runoff, and emissions and create habitats for native species. The roots of the trees hold the soil together and filter out contaminants in runoff before they reach the water. And the leaves absorb emissions and provide shade which keeps the water cool and oxygen-rich. For those that like to fish, high levels of oxygen and nutrients are required for a body of water to support aquatic life. Vegetation in riparian buffers also attracts birds, insects, and bats which eat mosquitos and other pesky insects.
Happy Shark Week everyone! If you’re anything like me, you are glued to the Discovery Channel for exactly one week every summer to learn from the newest and most groundbreaking shark research happening around the world. With Shark Week coinciding with peak swimming and boating season, you may have found yourself wondering – Are there …
Summer is in full swing, and the Alliance’s DC Team has been busy all over the District! We have been honored to participate in some exciting events recently that have allowed us to share our meet people from all over – in the watershed and out! Community engagement is a large part of our efforts …
In the last three years working at Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay, I’ve found work that allows me to coordinate some of those programs and resources that will enable people to be more informed about the health of their local waterways. I train community members to collect baseline water quality data within the Chesapeake Bay to look at long-term water quality trends. My journey with whitewater recreation and water quality are deeply intertwined, and I look forward to continuing to promote Chesapeake Bay stewardship and river safety in my circles and beyond.
