Silver Creek Preserve

Traci Swift:                         

Welcome to Connecting Conservation, a podcast brought to you by The Nature Conservancy in Idaho, we believe by bringing people together to drive transformational change and tackle the biggest conservation challenges in our state, we can secure a future where both people and nature thrive. I'm your host Traci, and for our inaugural season, we are exploring the topic of water in the gem state. From recreation to wildlife to agriculture, water is important to all of us, so water management should be too. Today we are discussing Silver Creek Preserve and what makes it so special with our preserve manager, Lou Lunte. Silver Creek is located 45 minutes south of Sun Valley and is a unique spring fed creek that is known for its crystal clear water, world-class fly-fishing, and amazing wildlife. It's also one of the most successful stream conservation efforts ever undertaken for public benefit and serves as a model for community-based conservation.

Lou Lunte:                          

I'm Lou Lunte, I'm the Silver Creek Preserve manager. I'm fortunate enough to be able to actually live in little house on the preserve with my wife Cindy, who's my full-time volunteer, and we're starting our fourth season at Silver Creek.

Traci Swift:                         

I mean, you're not really starting your fourth season, you've been here for a while.

Lou Lunte:                          

I have worked for the Idaho Chapter of the Nature Conservancy for 34 years, so it's been fun. I actually started as the preserve manager at Silver Creek back in the late eighties and went on and had a fabulous career with the Idaho Chapter in lots of different roles and Silver Creek just always had a place in my heart, so I decided it was the right place to go as I was coming to an end of my career.

Traci Swift:                         

So for people who have never been to the reserve, how would you describe it?

Lou Lunte:                          

Oh my gosh. A piece of paradise. So it's a partly remarkable because it's on the edge of the desert and the mountains and it has lots of water. So those three elements just bring a lot of wildlife to the place, and so it's about 900 acres, lots of trails, lots of things to see, but you can't talk about Silver Creek without talking about the fishery. And it's just a world renowned, unique, super special fishery that people like fly-fishing, catch and release only, and it's kind of a lifetime outing for some people. It's been, how many people I've talked to where it's sort of on their bucket list for life to come and fish Silver Creek because of everything they've heard about it and they're not disappointed.

Traci Swift:                         

I have heard stories that it's a great fishery but a hard one to fish if you're not a fly-fisher who has a lot of experience, but it's still fun to go out.

Lou Lunte:                          

It's absolutely fun to be out there. And so as many would say any day on the water is a better day than almost anywhere else. It can be challenging crystal clear water. It's 100% spring fed, and so the fish can see you coming from a long ways away. They also see a lot of flies over a season, so they get pretty smart and educated. But I would say that I've had essentially beginners come and have a great day catching fish and experts be skunked. So you never know, it's a little bit of just in the right place at the right time, but certainly experience is going to give you a higher percentage chance at success.

Traci Swift:                         

So you mentioned the water is very unique and special. What about being spring fed makes it so special?

Lou Lunte:                          

Oh yeah. The system, some people call it the ecosystem, but the water comes from the watershed above us, which is the Big Wood River and so right now the Big Wood River is running really high, which is a great thing, we've had several years of drought, so it's nice to see water. Some of that water spills out and goes in underground, it becomes groundwater, and when it's underground, a big piece of it just because of some geologic history, a big piece of that groundwater actually flows towards the southeast and then hits some hard material underground and gets forced back to the surface. And so there's hundreds of these springs that come up and form the little tributaries and creeks that then come together to form Silver Creek.

And so the spring water is unique because it's been underground for a period of time, which makes it generally cooler. So it comes out of the ground in 50, 55 degrees generally, and it also picks up some mineral. So it's got a chemistry that's different than a free flowing stream. And that chemistry forms the foundation of the ecosystem in many ways. So we have all these aquatic plants, anglers call them weeds, I like to call them aquatic plants.

Traci Swift:                         

It's classier.

Lou Lunte:                          

Many of them depend on that chemistry that's in the water and they grow very thick in Silver Creek. But it is those plants that create not only sort of structure in the stream for fish and other wildlife, but also creates the habitat for the insects that live in the stream and that emerge and it is that high density and diversity of aquatic insects that makes the spring creek so unique. It's great food source for the fish, so the fish grow big. It's also great food source for many of the birds and other animals in the area, so it's sort of the foundation of the food chain. So it all starts with the water goes to the plants and then from the plants to the insects and onto the animals.

Traci Swift:                         

With that water being so cold, what type of fish like to live in that habitat?

Lou Lunte:                          

So it is trout and then a few other native species, small species, so ones that most people don't pay attention to, but we've got a little endemic, which means it's only found in this area, sculpin, little tiny kind of prehistoric looking fish that lives down in the rocks. But the trout species, they're mostly rainbow trout and brown trout, both of them introduced in the past, which meaning they weren't the native fish in the system, but they're wild at this point, so there's no stocking anymore. And so they're fun fish to fish too.

Traci Swift:                         

So something special we know about Silver Creek, is that over, what would you say the last 75 years, there's been a lot of human interest and human activity, can you kind of describe the history of Silver Creek just like in the last 50 years?

Lou Lunte:                         

Yeah, so it's actually a pretty remarkable story and how the Nature Conservancy got involved. So that's pretty cool. So just going back about 50 years or maybe even 60, but was-

Traci Swift:                           

The start.

Lou Lunte:                          

Yeah, it was owned for quite a while, the core property was owned by the Sun Valley Company. So the Sun Valley Company, which owns the big ski resort at Sun Valley and started in the thirties, decided many years ago that they needed some summer alternative to the winter skiing. And so they bought this ranch. It was still being operated as a ranch, but they also allowed people to come down and enjoy and fish the streams. A lot of people had their first experience on Silver Creek when it was owned by the Sun Valley Company, but they also brought their guests down to bird hunt and fish, but back in the seventies, the Sun Valley company was going through some changes and realized it needed to consolidate, maybe focus around its winter activities, and they decided to sell the property they had at Silver Creek, which was the only really big piece of public, or semi-public because they let people use the property.

And so there was a lot of concern in the community, and the Nature Conservancy really didn't have a chapter or a strong presence in Idaho. We had done some projects like around the Birds of Prey, National Conservation Area as a national organization, they'd send staff out to do some projects, but no real presence in the state. But Jack Hemmingway son of Ernest Hemmingway, and many have heard stories about how Ernest would come down and spend a lot of time hunting and fishing on Silver Creek and in that area, and he'd often bring his son Jack down. Jack really got a lot of pleasure out of fishing and spent a lot of time on the creek fishing. And when he was on the Idaho Fishing Game Commission is when the property went up for sale and he immediately reached out to Sun Valley Company and said, "Hey, this place is just too special to just sell it." And fortunately, the Sun Valley Company, the leadership at that time, Bill Janss was open to that idea. And so Bill said, "If you can find the money." Because he couldn't give it away. And the community just stepped right up.

And Jack had known of the Nature Conservancy and so reached out to the organization and the organization said, "Wow, this really is a special place." For the reasons I described earlier, "There's amazing wildlife here, it's an amazing fishery, it's a unique spring creek, so it's an ecosystem that's really unique in the West. We'll try to help." So they came and worked with the Sun Valley Company and with the community members and bought the property. And it's just been a remarkable story since then, we've added some additional properties to the preserve that we own and manage, but we've also done a tremendous amount of work with the neighbors on protecting the springs and the spring creeks.

Traci Swift:                         

So why do those springs need protection? How are we protecting the water that makes Silver Creek possible?

Lou Lunte:                          

Yeah, it's an awesome question because I'd say when the Nature Conservancy first bought the original 480 acres, it was like, "We're just protecting this piece of property, this piece of property is so cool." And then we quickly realized that the water doesn't know property boundaries, and so you have to look to the watershed and the source of the water, and the first step was to look to the  upstream and the streams coming in and through the property. And that led us to start just working with the neighbors to again, limit the risk of development right on the stream where you could get pollution and contamination. It also meant working with a lot of the farmers to put buffers so that the streams to be healthy need a strip of green protected area along them. It helps shade and cool and provide habitat, but it also keeps runoff from getting directly into the stream.

And so those were two practices that we did a lot, had a lot of success with the neighbors that was protecting the properties from inappropriate development that might impact the stream and putting buffers in place to protect the stream. But then we also realized that there's all these different uses for water in the West, and if anybody's lived in the West, they know that water is precious. We can go through cycles of abundance and then we can go through cycles like we've had recently here at Silver Creek where we're in drought and water is really limited and we're trying to grow crops, we're trying to keep the streams flowing, we're trying to provide water to the cities and finding that balance of how we use that water. And so the Nature Conservancy has gotten much more involved in conversations with the broader water user community in how we can work together to figure out how to use the water and share it so that we can grow food and have really healthy streams and fun fisheries to go throw a fly.

Traci Swift:                         

So the first episode I actually talked with Neil, and it was this exact same topic about how do we use this finite resource to benefit people and nature and really I think that's something that Nature Conservancy is doing across the state, and Silver Creek is a great example of how that could actually work. So in the next, I guess... Let me restart, what is the issue Silver Creek is facing now compared to what it was facing 30 years ago?

Lou Lunte:                          

Yeah, so I think back then, again, the biggest fear was that we would see rampant development in around the stream, and we have impacts because of all the housing that might come in right near the stream. And so we focused there and we focused on making sure the landscape stayed open. And I think now as we look at it, we really look at the whole watershed. And so I'd put the big challenges in three sort of boxes. So one, is sort of overarching, which impacts everything and is clearly having an impact at Silver Creek, and that's climate change. And so as I mentioned a bit ago, we're seeing severe droughts. We've not seen in recorded history as far as just the length and severity of the droughts that are starting to appear in the West and those are impacting Silver Creek too. We're seeing temperatures that are getting hotter and we're seeing less snow in general. It varies, there's a lot of variability in climate change, but those things all impact our water supply. And so when we look at water supply, climate change is a big impact.

So then the second is agricultural uses in the watershed, and just recognizing that with that finite resource, figuring out how to balance, it's not just the water use that agriculture also needs if you're going to grow crop, you need water, it's also just how they grow the crop. And so we're partnering with a number of farmers who are really forward-thinking and looking at ways that they can use sustainable egg practices, that they reduce the amount of water they need to grow the same crop, they're reducing the amount of chemicals they have to put on so there's less likelihood for those chemicals to leach in and pollute the water. And so that's pretty exciting and fun.

And then I'd say the third place that we're really active is in what I call sort of community outreach and education. It's remarkable how inspired people can become when they come to a place like Silver Creek and can actually experience a place and understand how important water is to the system, how important hot summer droughts can be. And so that firsthand experience and being able to do that, whether it's young kids who come and just get excited and inspired to be out and learning and are just sponges to even adults who just haven't thought about it and put it in that sort of context before. So Silver Creek is a place that I think being able to help not only the next generation, but the current generation understand our role in protecting not only special places like Silver Creek, but protecting the planet, right?

Traci Swift:                         

Yeah, silver Creek is a great way to find something locally that connects to these global issues that we're all facing climate change. I would love to hear you tell a story about maybe some of these students that you've seen, I know you've had a lot of classes recently.

Lou Lunte:                          

I guess I've got sort of a personal passion for the elementary age, the younger kids, because they just come with so much energy and excitement. So we had a group of first-graders last week come down and just from the moment they got off the bus, it was just asking questions and going in every direction. And the first thing we always do is we kind of do a little orientation and ask, who'd been there before and only about a quarter of the hands went up. So it's like they live locally and a quarter of them actually been out to this place and so that was really cool. And then after doing an introduction orientation, we go for a hike. And with the younger ones, we call it a treasure hunt because we're looking for things, we're trying to get them to observe and listen, and we'll actually let them collect little sort of renewable items like a leaf off of this plant or a pet off of that flower. And so we call that they're collecting their treasures, but just to see them get so excited about that blue flower, what's that blue flower or what's the shiny little bug here? Or what tree is that? Or it's just, you never know what sort of question-

Traci Swift:                         

I feel like I have those same questions, what tree is that?

Lou Lunte:                          

And we stumble on coyote poop or moose poop or an owl pellet, which is all these things that they're just, like I said, sponges, soaking it up and just the volume, I don't know how many birds we actually saw just because as the first-graders get more and more excited, they get louder and louder.

Traci Swift:                         

The birds kind of disappear.

Lou Lunte:                          

And the birds get a little bit more scarce. And then the fun thing is after we take the hike, we come back to the new conservation education center and the new classroom space that we have, and we've got these really cool little digital microscopes that actually have screens on them, and they can take their little treasures and look at them in a new light, sort of in a magnified way. And it's like  they just get super excited to see actually the colors in the eyes of a fly versus what you normally don't see those things with the naked eye.

Traci Swift:                         

Yeah, I was able to check those out this last weekend and I mean, when I was that young, we had to put our eyes super close to the microscope and try to zoom in and you're like, I had glasses, you're trying to figure that out. So I love that it's a little bit more accessible with that screen where you can see it.

Lou Lunte:                          

Especially elementary school kids putting their eyes to an eyepiece.

Traci Swift:                         

It's so hard.

Lou Lunte:                          

Just doesn't work.

Traci Swift:                         

So digging into the science of the water, how do you connect the students with the science that Erica and you are doing? Erica, who is... What is Erica's title?

Lou Lunte:                          

Erica's title is the watershed manager. So she oversees not only Silver Creek, but the Big Wood and all of our projects in this region.

Traci Swift:                         

So how does the science that's happening at the preserve impact choices you're making and management, and do you try to instill that knowledge in these students?

Lou Lunte:                          

Oh, great question. So yeah, the first part of that, which is as stewards, we like to think of ourselves as stewards of this land, trying to come up with some understanding of what's going on and science is one tool for doing that, which can be really powerful. And so we have 47 years, this is our 47th season at Silver Creek, and so we've had the opportunity over many years to collect information to help us better understand how the system works. The system knows how it works, but we need to try to figure out how it works better.

And so we've collected, for example, water samples, understand temperature and dissolved oxygen and sediment that might be moving in the system. And as I said earlier, without good stream buffers, sometimes the agricultural practices you get run off into the stream and then you get higher sediment levels, which is dirt in the water, and that dirt in the water can have a real impact on the aquatic life, the insects and the fish. And so understanding where that's coming from and how much there is. So we've tracked that for many years, and then we sort of compiled that altogether and did a whole watershed wide assessment, so looking at all the tributaries on all the water sources for Silver Creek a few years ago and all this old data that we had and identified a couple of the tributaries that were really contributing a lot of the warmer water and like I said earlier, springs come out of the ground, cool, but if they're exposed to too much sun in the summer or if they get too shallow, they can warm up quite a bit and that can really impact the aquatic life, or if they have too much sediment, mud and dirt in the water.

And so we were able to identify a couple of the tributaries that were significantly contributing hot water or dirty water certain times of the year. And we say that's not right, we need to keep Silver Creek healthy because being healthy also means it's a much more resilient to climate change and droughts or other things that might be happening. So if the water is kept cooler than even if we have a hot summer, the system is better protected against... The aquatic life in the system are better protected.

So we found a couple of streams, places that we could do work, restoration work and so we went in and we actually built, kind of tried to undo what I call some impacts to the system that happened many years ago where the stream got over widened or it got filled in with sediment or all the riparian vegetation was removed. And we went in and said, okay, we can narrow this up, we can deepen it up, we can add trees, plants to shade it. And so that's kind of an example of how we use the science to drive our management. I'd say we also just watch people use in Silver Creek, we have a six-month season and we have over 10,000 people that come a year. And so it became clear that as that use increased, and this became really apparent during the pandemic, COVID, we just got a crazy number of people who wanted to come out and I mean, it was beautiful that we were there and they could.

Traci Swift:                         

We weren't the only place that had that, I think state parks all across Idaho had just-

Lou Lunte:                          

Huge explosion of use. We started to see real impacts where people weren't following trails or anglers, people were getting in the water at different places and starting to break down the banks. And so that helped guide our management too, we could actually visually, by watching and tracking these changes in the system, we could say, "Oh, we're really starting to lose bank here." Which is, bank is really important habitat and also keeps sediment out of the system again, that dirt. And so we started designating trails, we moved a few trails, we put in some access ramps so that the anglers could get into the water without having to break down the bank and crawl over the bank to get in or out of the water.

 Sharing that with the kids, it's partly just finding age appropriate ways to talk about it. One of the things we do is we collect water samples and we go up to the classroom and can look at those again in these microscopes, and we talk about the little insects and what they need and how associated they are with the aquatic plants. And when we're doing our hikes, we can point to, "Look how many plants do you see in the really deep sedimented areas, in the muddy areas, and where do you think that mud comes from? And here's what we've learned from the research we've done." So it's a fun way to bring it full circle and then ask them what they see, get them really involved in thinking about it.

Traci Swift:                         

When you imagine 25 years from now, you might be retired by then, you're welcome to stay as long as you want, what do you hope Silver Creek is? What does it look like?

Lou Lunte:                          

Oh gosh. Like I said, this is our 47th year, so it's not unrealistic to think about 25 years from now. I hope it's still a place that just inspires young and old, a place that we still see moose all the time, that we still have all these amazing birds that show up in the spring and spend the summer with us. It's a place where we continue to work as a community and I think that's one of the really cool things about Silver Creek is it's not the Nature Conservancy, it's about a community effort and we happen to be part of it, which is just really special. And so that farmers, the ranchers around us continue to care as deeply about the creek as we do and keep looking to do better in their farming practices and that we partner with them to do that, that people are still coming from all over the world to experience a special place that we are seeing, instead of a few dozen school groups we're just filled all season long with kids coming. I'd love to see that our educational programs expand and serve a broader set of communities in the region.

Traci Swift:                         

Love that. You mentioned a couple times now, community one in partnerships. One of my favorite things about working for TNC, which is I'm pretty sure one of our core values is working in a collaborative way. So any partners you would like to highlight that's made the last 47 years possible?

Lou Lunte:                          

Oh my gosh. It might take me another 47 years to list them all, but of course, well, the neighbors first and foremost, and we have many who've been in the valley much longer than we have. Families like the Purdy family, the Stevenson family, the Molino family, all really important families in the area who we've learned a lot from, but have also worked really closely with us to help protect the resource. The Idaho Fish and Game has been a good agency partner, the community members, there's just a number of great nonprofits in the Valley who either support us through their efforts, like groups like the Trout Unlimited, partnering with the Wood River Land Trust on a number of projects, to nonprofits that fund our work. We've got a number of foundations that have really been instrumental to helping us protect Silver Creek and expand our educational program efforts.

Traci Swift:                         

Is there anything I haven't touched on related to water? I think I do want to do a little bit about visitors, what they can expect when they come, but is there anything water specific that you think should be covered?

Lou Lunte:                          

Maybe touch on that sometimes people think issues like climate change and the impact it's having on water, water, whether it's drought or getting hotter or that we're getting rain instead of snow, which really changes how the system works, that it's an issue bigger than them and that they can't really do much about it. And I think there's just dozens of things, little things that we can do every day. And I'll focus mostly on when you're at the preserve and you come down, just how you experience the preserve, what you're inspired by or willing to learn about those issues when you're down there. But also just hopefully after listening to this podcast, you understand why it's important to stay on the trails so that we're not creating extra runoff into the stream or why if you're coming to fish that you're using the access ramps, you're not breaking down the banks. If you're floating similarly, you're not stirring up a lot of extra muck or dumping things in the water as you're going. All those things have cumulative impact, just taking care, we all have a responsibility to take care of this place we call home at Silver Creek.

Traci Swift:                         

If people wanted to get more information about Silver Creek, where should they go?

Lou Lunte:                          

Yeah, I think the website is the perfect place to start your adventure to Silver Creek.

Traci Swift:                         

Yes.

Lou Lunte:                          

So it would be at nature.org/silvercreek, and there's a bunch of great information there about when to come, what to expect when you get there, different maps and brochures about the different things that are there.

Traci Swift:                       

This may be a trick question since you live out on the preserve, but you can make your answer however you would like. So the podcast is called Connecting... Oh my gosh, Connecting Conservation, so how do you like to connect to nature? And nature can really be however you want to define that.

Lou Lunte:                          

Which is so important, nature is first and foremost probably getting out of the house in some way, but oh, I do live on the preserve, so it's really, I'm so spoiled. I'm so fortunate in my life and to have this in my life. So from the moment I get up in the morning and grab my cup of coffee, I'm looking out the windows and just surrounded by beauty and not uncommonly a moose standing somewhere outside one of the windows or sandhill cranes calling in the distance and I can hear them, but I think my wife, Cindy and I like to experience it just walking and sort of in the quiet, just absorbing the sounds, the smells, the visuals. But sometimes I'll even just close my eyes and stand there and listen, sound of running water, something that has always just been sort of a way of bringing me peace.

Traci Swift:                         

That's beautiful. Since I've been lucky enough to be out there, I can kind of feel that in here. Well, thank you so much for agreeing to be interviewed and for all you're doing to inspire the next generation and your commitment to The Nature Conservancy. I have been with the chapter five years now, and when I talk to people about The Nature Conservancy it's, "Is Lou still there, and how is he doing?" So we appreciate everything you've done and continue to do.

Lou Lunte:                          

Thank you so much, Traci. It's obviously a part of my life and I'm very passionate about it and love sharing it and that's really why I love being back at Silver Creek because I can really share it with more people. Come explore Silver Creek. Come have a day whenever it is, however you want to do it, just come and we'll help you have a great experience and have some special time.

Traci Swift:                         

You've been listening to Connecting Conservation, a podcast brought to you by The Nature Conservancy in Idaho. To learn more about our work, please visit ww.nature.org/idaho and please stay tuned for future episodes where we continue to explore water conservation in Idaho. Thanks for listening.