Ya Reckon?
 | Author: Denise Thompson, MT43 News AG Correspondent Denise Thompson |
Denise Thompson
MT43 News AG Correspondent
Since January, Broadwater Conservation District (BCD) has been hosting our 4th Big Sky Watershed Corps (BSWC) member, Ms. Shayla Utzinger. The BSWC program, which originated in Montana, is an offshoot of the well-known AmeriCorps program.
“Shayla joins us from Virginia, where she grew up in Appalachia and earned a degree in Environmental and Water Resource Engineering from the University of Virginia. After graduating, Shayla sought more hands-on conservation experience and moved to Bryce Canyon National Park to serve as an AmeriCorps member on a chainsaw crew doing wildland fire fuels reduction. She loved her time there and, eager to explore more of the West, applied for the Big Sky Watershed Corps program. This led to her placement with the Broadwater Conservation District. Shayla is excited to learn more about the intersection of agriculture and watershed restoration, along with all things related to bugs and fish. Outside of work, you’ll likely find her on an adventure—skiing, exploring streams and rivers, soaking up the spring sunshine, or, more recently, riding the newly snow-free trails on her mountain bike.” (excerpt from the BCD website)
Top on Shayla’s ‘bucket list’ while in Montana for her 11-month BSWC term is to bike-pack a large section of the Continental Divide and catch a fish in Edith Lake. Her passion for the outdoors most likely came from her father, who is an avid kayaker and rafter. Outdoor adventures have always been front and center in her life, as her parents raised her traveling the U.S., hiking the Appalachian Trail, backpacking, and soaking up the outdoors. When Shayla was a little girl, she and her parents and their four dogs took a family vacation to Washington state where they all lived in their Subaru Matrix for most of a summer. Perhaps her fondest family adventure was a horrible canoe trip in Maine. The mosquitoes were brutal, but the family time and catching a huge frog made the trip epic. No doubt Shayla’s folks are stoked she is working in Montana. They are back to living a somewhat nomadic lifestyle and are looking forward to dropping into the Big Sky state for multiple visits.
Shayla’s main focus, while at Broadwater Conservation District, will be the 10-Year Deep Creek milestones and monitoring for its success. She is a pleasant, hospitable, hardworking individual with a strong natural resource skillset. She has hit the ground running, and the district can see why she excelled as a sawyer in Utah, cutting down Ponderosa Pines for 4-months straight. She is gritty and fun and super driven to accomplish things. It is so interesting how her love for building homes and her passion for water and fish led her to seek an engineering degree with a focus on Water Resource and Restoration Engineering. She wrote her college essay on a Watershed Restoration Plan for the North Fork of the Roanoke River. She grew up near this river but was not allowed to play in it because it was in such bad shape, with erosion and pollution issues. Perhaps watershed restoration has been flowing through Shayla’s veins far longer than she had even imagined, ya reckon!?
One thing Shalya has learned thus far, while working at BCD, is the complexity of irrigation in the west and how vested the farmers and ranchers are in protecting the water systems because they need that water! Water is so valuable out west because there is far less of it than there is back east. Shayla also noted that there are far different dynamics out here: There is a much more collaborative effort between fisheries, recreation and agriculture, and the need to work together to protect and preserve the waters of Montana.
For the Love of Ag, From the Heart of a Western Woman,
Denise Thompson
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PhotoCredit: Provided by Denise Thompson
Image 1 Caption: Shayla with her folks and dog, out on another adventure!
Photo Provided by Denise Thompson
