AmeriCorps volunteers have recently chipped in to improve the egg incubation process at the Carson National Fish Hatchery.
The hatchery has changed the way its eggs are being incubated. In the past, water was pushed up through the system. Now, the water cycles from above. One huge advantage to this system is that it allows the hatchery to use a smaller quantity of disinfectants on the eggs. The disadvantage was that the process was going to be extremely labor intensive. This is when over 25 AmeriCorps volunteers from the Northwest Service Academy stepped in to offer their help.
With duct-taped thumbs, to protect their skin from being punctured in the building process, the volunteers came to the Carson hatchery. Over the course of a month, eight or nine volunteers at a time would come to the hatchery and construct the new buckets. In the end over 600 buckets were made.
The partnership between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and AmeriCorps was a huge success.
Curt Friez, assistant manager at the Carson hatchery said, "The AmeriCorps volunteers have saved the hatchery between $5,000-$6,000 and 300-350 hours of hatchery staff labor."
Friez also mentioned that the hatchery is short-handed right now; therefore, without the help of the AmeriCorps volunteers the project would not have been completed.