Bridge project engages Salcha students.

• Author: Wheeler, Stephenie
• Position: Reprint

On Friday, May 11, the entire 91-student body of Salcha Elementary School arrived by school bus and quickly swarmed along the banks of Piledriver Slough, a small Salcha-area waterway running roughly parallel to the Tanana River. It looked like a fresh-aired field trip for antsy children nearing the end of the school year. In reality, the delighted squeals, curious questions and furious note-taking will play a part in the Alaska Railroad's project to build a bridge over the Tanana River and to build a levee to keep the river on course near Salcha. This is Phase One of the Northern Rail Extension (NRE).

While primarily groundwater-fed, Piledriver Slough periodically fills with Tanana River flood waters during spring break-up and other high-water events. That won't happen once the completed levee closes the slough's mouth to the river. The Alaska Department of Fish & Game (ADFG) wants to monitor the levee's impact to fish in the slough.

The impact boils down to beavers. These busy critters build dams along the dozen or so study miles of the meandering slough. Seasonal flooding typically destroys some of the beaver dams, thereby facilitating water flow and presumably fish passage.

If dams are no longer broken up by a spring flush, will the fish still be able to move upstream to spawn in the slough? That's what ADFG wants to know.

On May 11, the children were on their first assignment as part of an ADFG blessed partnership between the Alaska Railroad, the Tanana Valley Watershed Association (TVWA) and Salcha School.

The alliance was formed to carry out a 10-year beaver dam mitigation measure noted by the NRE environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and included in the ADFG permit required to proceed with levee construction.

Here's how the partnership works: For the next decade, at least twice a year, students (kindergarten through 6th grade) will visit the slough--just after spring break-up (before school adjourns) and just before freeze-up (after school convenes)--and possibly during summer school camp in June. Students will assess the slough habitat, test water quality (sediment) and observe, identify and count fish. To assist with the field assignments, the NRE project equipped each child with a kit including waterproof paper and field notebooks. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has supplied educational materials, including fish viewfinders, minnow-traps...