The effort will go toward rehabilitating site of 2020 Indian Creek Fire that destroyed more than 48,000 acres
Seeding change: Inmates at Coyote Ridge Corrections Center in Connell, Washington, cultivated these sagebrush plants. Photo: Jeff Clark/BLM
By Jason Miller, Argus Observer. January 4, 2022. The Sagebrush in Prisons Crew at Snake River Correctional Institution in Ontario, Oregon, recently wrapped up another successful year of sagebrush propagation, according to an email during the week of Christmas from spokeswoman Amber Campbell.
Crews were able to deliver 42,000 sagebrush seedlings to the Bureau of Land Management’s Vale District, she said.
The program was started as a pilot at SRCI in 2014. The nonprofit Institute for Applied Ecology, and the Bureau of Land Management in Washington, D.C., and in Vale, have partnered with the program in efforts to improve habitat conditions for the declining species by sowing and planting seeds.
Inmates use sagebrush plants for post-fire rehabilitation.
Long-term project
In April 2021, crews began by mixing soil and sowing tiny sagebrush seeds into cone-shaped pots.
They continued with daily care, watering and fertilizing through the long and very hot summer.
In early November, about 15 inmates helped pull the plants out of cones and box them up for planting.
The seedlings were planted at the site of the Indian Creek Fire that chewed up more than 48,000 acres near Juntura in 2020. The blaze, which is thought to be human caused, consumed priority sage-grouse habitat on private, state and Vale BLM-managed lands in sagebrush, juniper and grassland.
The crew who worked on growing the seedlings is “hopeful for a successful restoration of the sagebrush plant community.”
Following their work, they were able to celebrate with pizza and a certificate at a gathering hosted by the Institute for Applied Ecology.
Leslie Thompson contributed to this article.
Great, rewarding work restoring burned areas. Hopefully inmates learn new usable skills