Clackamas Community College, SOLVE Oregon Seek Volunteers

OREGON CITY, OR – Clackamas Community College is seeking volunteers to help clean up the Newell Creek headwaters at the college's Environmental Learning Center next weekend in preparation of the Newell Creek restoration project this summer.

From 9:30 a.m. to 12 p.m. Saturday, May 6, at the college’s Oregon City campus, 19600 Molalla Ave., volunteers will be expected to clean up litter and pull weeds around the 5-acre Environmental Learning Center (ELC) property. The college will bring tools, but volunteers are expected to dress appropriately and bring their own gloves and gardening shears.

According to college spokeswoman Lori Hall, beginning this summer the Newell Creek restoration project will transform the area around the creek’s headwaters into an outdoor learning laboratory, demonstration project location, and natural area that showcases innovations in storm water management, native habitat restoration, and sustainable living practices through a partnership of local agencies and educational institutions.

For ELC Education Program Manager Renee Harber, the project will bolster not only the college's educational programs but also introduce the important native habitat to students of all ages in and out of Oregon City.

"It's part of a concerted effort to bring more students to the ELC," she told Patch Tuesday. "It's not only that we're cleaning up the water, but we're also creating an educational environment to be used by students throughout the Portland metro region."

Newell Creek, which begins near the ELC and crosses through the college campus, flows through an 1,800-acre watershed to the Willamette River, creating the southern metro area’s largest contiguous green space. Roughly 50 percent of the campus storm water flows into the creek, making the effort to clean the area around the headwaters all the more important, Harber said.

"Everything downstream will be happier and healthier," she said.

The effort to maintain and restore the area has carried on since the 1990s, with a similar cleanup event held in March 2016 for the campus' 50-year anniversary.

This year’s cleanup efforts, however, are being conducted in partnership with SOLVE Oregon, a nonprofit volunteer convener focused specifically on outdoor restoration projects as ways to bring the business and resident communities together.

To register for the May 6 event, visit the SOLVE Oregon website by clicking here. And for more information about the college, the ELC, or the Newell Creek restoration project, email Renee Harber at rharber@clackamas.edu.

This post was updated to include comments from Environmental Learning Center Educational Program Manager Renee Harber.

Photo Courtesy: Clackamas Community College