Congratulations to the 2017 Wetland Stewardship Award Winners - The Trust for Public Land and Larry Urban!
The Trust for Public Land (TPL) and Larry Urban were selected as recipients of the 2017 Wetland Stewardship Awards. The awards will be presented at the Montana State Capitol Building in the Rotunda on March 20th at 2:00 pm. Please join us to celebrate the great
work that TPL and Larry have done for Montana's Wetlands!
Here's a little more about the winners:
The Trust for Public Land
The Trust for Public Land (TPL), under the guidance of their project manager Maddy Pope, is creating a 54-acre community park at the confluence
of Bozeman Creek and East Gallatin River in northeast Bozeman, Montana. Prior to developing the site as a community park, TPL voluntarily undertook ecological restoration of the site with the goal to "…restore and protect on-site natural processes necessary
for a functioning riparian and wetland system." Maddy’s leadership and supervision for site restoration resulted in a doubling of existing wetland acreage to 14 acres, restored fluvial processes along a ½ mile of the East Gallatin River, created green infrastructure
for water quality improvements on Bozeman Creek (e.g., the Bozeman Creek slough), and reconnected over 2.5 acres of floodplain to Bozeman Creek and the East Gallatin River.
Perhaps the most successful aspect of this project is the high level of inclusion and engagement with the community and stakeholders that
Maddy and TPL achieved. Stakeholders in the project include the City of Bozeman; Montana Department of Environmental Quality; Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife, and Parks; Montana State University; Greater Gallatin Watershed Council; Gallatin Local Water
Quality District; Trout Unlimited; neighbors, and numerous local water resource professionals.
Larry Urban
Larry Urban has been a champion for wetlands in the State of Montana since he started at the Montana Department of Transportation (MDT)
in the early 1990’s. Since that time he has sponsored, made contributions to, and overseen the development and implementation of four versions of MDT’s Montana Wetland Assessment Method (MWAM). Larry’s actions, with the support of MDT, has empowered Montana’s
community of wetland scientists with the ability to better evaluate our State’s wetlands and thereby make more informed management decisions about the resource.
Over the past 24 years Larry has also worked tirelessly to identify and develop a network of over 50 wetland reserves around the state to
compensate for unavoidable wetland impacts caused by roadway improvements. As a result, Larry has built one of the largest and most comprehensive wetland mitigation reserve and monitoring programs in the U.S. The success of MDT’s wetland mitigation program
is due directly to Larry’s commitment to the wetland resources found throughout the state, and his unflagging goal to provide highly functioning wetland resources for people and wildlife.
Larry is a committed and successful wetland practitioner in the State of Montana for over 20 years. He oversees one of the single largest
wetland programs in the country and continues to support the growth and development of the science. In almost every way he has played an important role for wetland resources in Montana.
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