On Friday, April 21, 15 students from the Williams' School senior class were part of a day long environmental workshop touring DEP, OLCT's fishway on the Woodward Griswold Preserve and other locations in the area.

Steve Gephard from DEP talked at the fishway about techniques being used to re-establish the food fish, alewife, and blue back herring, common to the Connecticut River but suffering from reduced spawning and nursery habitat since the advent of dams on almost all streams and rivers in Connecticut.

The advent of fishways is restoring the quantity of both spawning grounds and numbers of fish to the ecosystem which provides an abundance of food for many species such as birds, larger fish and mammals. He talked as well about the techniques of monitoring the numbers and types of fish passing through the ladders, lifts and fish counters such as those placed at the Woodward Griswold fishway. This year's counts are low due to low water and high temperatures.
 
Runs, this year, are expected just after rains when the water has cooled and the flow slowed. So we expect, if there are fish in migration, to see another run any day now.
 
Ted Crosby from OLCT took the students on the 'conservation' related part of the talk, to the bank the beavers are working on discussing the virtues and detriments to the habitat made by beavers. From there on to the bank by the pond to show them what caused the sand bank to accumulate (flooding), how it served as a nursery for fish, swans, and young beaver, and what man had mined from it and what recreation (mountain bikers) had done to it, leaving trampled vernal pools behind. The barn foundation on the south was our last stop where the significance of conserving archeological sites was discussed.