For those who don’t know what OCC stands for, it is Operation Christmas Child. On Sunday, November 13, some team members helped out with a shoebox packing party at the First Baptist Church in St. Paul. They helped younger children prepare and pack shoeboxes full of toys, hygiene items, school supplies and candy to be passed out around the world… including the United States. It was a fun party and once again, Team Estonoa gave their time to the community to help others.

Today, it was an adult box turtle basking in the sun beside the path. A slight rustling in the dry leaves gave it’s position away as it stretched its legs to soak up the warmth. Soon it will tuck away some place safe for a Winter rest. But today, it offered us a learning opportunity as members of Team Estonoa took a break from grounds maintenance to check it out.  ”What kind of turtle?” “How old do you think it is?” Why is it flatter than other box turtles I’ve seen?” “Is it a male or female?”

The Clinch River Strategic Planning, Environmental Ed. Committee met at Estonoa Learning Center last night to discuss action items and goals developed at their October 4 Community Workshop. It was a working dinner meeting and Team Estonoa members Susanna Shepard, Kayla Sullivan and Mikaela Campbell were there to lend support and share ideas for one of the action items open for discussion – informational signage at access points along the Clinch River.  Susanna and Kayla presented some basic ideas to the committee.  Committee members present for the meeting included representatives from Dominion Resources, UTRR (Upper Tennessee River Roundtable), the Town of St. Paul, Wetlands Estonoa, UVA’s Institute for Environment Negotiation and local educators. It was a productive meeting and a great experience for “The Team.”

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THIS IS WHY… CLEAN, HEALTHY
WATERWAYS!

Need we say more !?!

With the assistance of Mike Pinder, Virginia Dept. of Game and Inland Fisheries, Team Estonoa released 650 juvenile mussels into the Clinch River at St. Paul, Virginia. On October 21, 2011, we made a difference. 500 wavy-rayed lamp mussels and 150 mountain creekshell mussels took their natural place in the Clinch. 253 Estonoa “babies” were joined by 397 donated by VDGIF.

Mike Pinder briefly explained the mussel release, and said, “We’re here to celebrate the mussels being monitored by Team Estonoa from St. Paul to Dungannon during the entire summer.” He explained that this project is important, since the area is one of the most mussel-rich in the entire world, yet the mussel population at one time was almost gone. This effort is beneficial to the river and the environment. Mussels help keep water clean by filtering between 0.5 and 1.25 gallons of water per hour, as they filter feed on bacteria, algae and suspended particles.

Castlewood and St. Paul Elementary School fourth grade students were selected this season for educational outreach. Team Estonoa took the project into 4th grade classrooms explaining the life cycle and importance of freshwater mussels and our river’s health. All students were given Russell the Mussel t-shirts in celebration of the release.  As Team Estonoa’s “babies” were released, fourth grade students hooped and hollered a cheerful farewell.

Yes! Today we made a difference!!!

Melissa and Amy, one of her students, presented a poster of their results from some of the samples collected previously at Estonoa at the Geological Society of America conference last week and they brought Team Estonoa a copy. We’re extremely grateful for their gift!

They were looking to find thecamoebians in the core samples they took during their last visit. Thecamoebians are single-celled protists partially enclosed in a simple shell commonly found in soils, leaf litter, peat bogs and near/in fresh water. They didn’t find many, which was quite puzzling because they are present in other lakes in the region. So, their visit today was to take a longer core sample in Estonoa to see if they can track the changes in land use over time and to see if the absence of thecamoebians is a recent change, possibly due to high amounts of organic matter (another study noted that thecamoebians can be absent in areas with large amounts of organic matter), rather than anything to do with water quality. They seemed pleased with the samples they collected and Estonoa gave them a good workout gathering and containing the samples.

Of course, Team Estonoa is delighted to take part, or watch as we did today, in anything going on in and about our treasured wetlands. Today was both entertaining and educational and we look forward to receiving the results of their study.  It was a good afternoon for all!

Castlewood and the Town of St. Paul/Russell and Wise Counties, Virginia

Great news!! The Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries’ Virginia Naturally School Recognition is proud to recognize Castlewood High School as a Virginia Naturally School. Schools currently receiving this recognition have demonstrated exemplary efforts to promote good stewardship of Virginia’s natural resources during the 2010-2011 school year.  In addition, Virginia Naturally Schools work to promote civic pride through knowledge of the community history in the area in which they reside. Virginia Naturally Schools must meet specific requirements which increase with each successive year a school achieves this  recognition. This is the first year Castlewood High School has received this honor. CHS is one of only 48 schools from across the state to receive this award! For more information, go to http://www.wetlandsestonoa.org and click on the Virginia Naturally tab.