Crook County youth invited to participate in community river reclamation project

A nonprofit organization is teaming up with local youth and multiple local organizations to clean up and enhance land near Crooked River Park.

The Earthwin Challenge is a project that started with a simple desire to have a safe river access location, to float the Crooked River in Prineville and to provide a fun, equitably social and sustainable recreation activity during the hot summer months, enhancing community recreation and livability.

The City of Prineville and Crook County Parks and Recreation District partnered with Earthwin to help identify the location: a 26-acre site just south of Crooked River Park. Currently, the site is a dumping ground for litter and debris, Earthwin states, and is overgrown with noxious weeds and attracts unhealthy elements.

In addition to cleaning up and improving the site, the project is designed to provide youth with a platform to create meaningful projects that benefit their community, while learning project lifecycles and becoming stewards of their community, building confidence and leadership skills that will last a lifetime and forging our future leaders and problem solvers.

The project will be completed in two phases. The goal of Phase 1 is to remove litter, weeds and debris and to start visioning the park design and begin long term planning for a river trail.

During Phase 2, the goal is to perform planning and restoration studies to understand how to best restore the health of the river and native fish and wildlife. The goal is to also build a plan and funding strategy for a “beautiful park and river trail.”

“The City of Prineville and Parks and Rec see this as the perfect starting point to raise funding for the Unified Parks System and Pathways Plan,” Earthwin stated, “and OSU is excited about the many opportunities to inspire youth into STEAM education.”

Those opportunities include habitat restoration and preservation, mechanical engineering, sustainability and resilience in land use planning, civil engineering, conservation GIS and biomimicry, soil and water conservation and watersheds.

Earthwin points out that the project aligns with the Crook County Unified Parks and Recreation System Plan 2021, the City Of Prineville's Transportation and Pathways Plan and Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife's habitat restoration plans. The organization added that it has “necessary approvals and support from Central Oregon Intergovernmental Council (COIC), Crook County Parks and Recreation (CCPRD), City of Prineville, Crooked River Watershed Council, Crooked River Weed Management, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and Oregon State University.

The event will take place at the site on Friday, May 31, from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Youth can sign up for the Earthwin Challenge by visiting forms.gle/PjKxtuR6N2Fzfcys8 and filling out the online form.