Your source for stories, insights, and updates about the Oswego Lake Watershed and the work of the Oswego Lake Watershed Council. Here you’ll find many of our newsletter articles, event highlights, project updates, and information to help you learn about and protect our local environment.
Follow the Rain: How Stormwater Moves Through Our Watershed
Rain falls often in our community. But where does all that rain go? And when does rain become stormwater? This article takes a closer look at what happens after the rain falls.
Village on the Lake – Lily Bay Restoration Project
Our first year of restoration at this site resulted in significant improvements across one acre of the nine-acre natural area. This acre contained the most critical habitat: a small, perennial creek that flows into Lily Bay.
Youth Sustainability Collective Blog
The Youth Sustainability Collective (YSC) is excited to introduce our monthly blog series. Each month, we’ll share updates, stories, and how we havebeen impacting the LO community.
Spotlight on White Rock Larkspur: Delphinium leucophaeum
OLWC intern Roxana Sotelo Laureano’s project not only advances our understanding of White Rock Larkspur but also demonstrates the value of hands-on, student-led conservation work.
A Story of Oaks: Connecting with Trees Across Generations
An oak tree is not just a tree. It is a memory and a connector. Take the time to get to know an oak tree in your neighborhood. How long has this tree been here? What can I learn from this tree? What can I do to care for it? How can I make sure future generations are able to benefit from the shade and acorns it provides? How can I thank this tree and appreciate it?
Hands-On Learning and Habitat Restoration: OLWC Engages Students This Fall
This fall, the Oswego Lake Watershed Council (OLWC) has been hard at work connecting students of all ages with the natural world through hands-on learning and stewardship. From second graders discovering the magic of water to high school students restoring habitat for beavers, OLWC’s education programs are helping young people understand how healthy watersheds sustain thriving communities.
The Niche of Urban Habitat
The urban world that humans create can have a range of disruptions to the surrounding natural systems. The removal of vegetation, construction of buildings, infrastructure, altered waterways, fragmented habitat, pollution, noise, and light. While we can find ways to mitigate the negative impacts and use more environmentally friendly approaches, the fact remains that our presence has an impact.
An Ode to Our Oaks
Prior to the conversion of land for farming and development, the Willamette Valley was a vast garden of oak prairies, stewarded by the indigenous nations, tended with cycles of fire and regrowth. The habitat held, and pockets still hold, a unique diversity of plant and animal species found nowhere else. Species coevolved in a landscape dominated by the keystone oaks. Without these trees a whole system of other species would fade away.
Community Science in Action: The 2025 Soil Your Undies Challenge
A playful project with a powerful message about the importance of soil health.
This spring, the Oswego Lake Watershed Council invited residents to take part in a hands-on experiment with a quirky name and a serious purpose: the Soil Your Undies Challenge.
Making the Most of the Rain: Our Journey to a Thriving Urban Habitat
Rain, rain, go away… is that how you feel during the long Pacific Northwest rainy season? If so, I encourage you to see that rain not as an inconvenience but as an opportunity. With the right approach, you can harness rainfall to support your landscape through water features, rain barrels, and rain gardens.
Beavers: Nature’s Engineers at Work
Beavers may be best known for their dams, but these remarkable animals are increasingly recognized as powerful partners in restoring ecosystems. Learn how beavers shape resilient landscapes—without machines, chemicals, or blueprints.
Seed Libraries: The Contents are Growing
Libraries, long known for sowing ideas, are now helping the community sow seeds and build a community around seed sharing. Lake Oswego now has at least two seed libraries, one run by the Lake Oswego Public Library and the other by Friends of Tryon Creek.
Getting to Know a Soil Creature – The Nematode
Healthy soil supports a myriad of creatures and they in turn help support healthy soil. To name a few: nematodes, springtails, fungi, bacteria, algae, protozoa, mites and other larger organisms. Characteristics of healthy soil include space for air and water, a...
Pollinator Partners Assemble!
You might remember these striking photographs showing the impact of pollinators on our food choices – these photos show the produce section of a Whole Foods market with, and without, fresh produce made available because of pollinators:What is pollination? Pollination...
Thinking Beyond Lawn Towards Living Landscapes
While lawn can be a good choice for high traffic play areas, its benefits are limited when it comes to supporting bird, pollinator and wildlife populations. Turf-oriented landscapes, however, can be an invitation to start fresh with a blank slate.
The Living Soil, Part 1
For the smallest creatures, soil provides not only shelter but food. Everything they need: food, air and water, is there.
Wildfire Resilience
What is Lake Oswego Forest Resiliency? The idea of land resilience and community involvement requires a coupling of social and ecological resilience in rapidly changing landscapes affected by our warming climate. Land management is strongest when it adopts multiple...
Watershed Health
Characteristics of a Healthy Watershed A healthy watershed is vital to maintaining a balanced and thriving ecosystem. Key characteristics include: Dense Native Vegetation and Tree Canopy: Supports biodiversity and helps stabilize the environment. Stable Soils: Capable...
Can a lawn be a thriving natural habitat?
By Sharon Hawley Yes, if the soil beneath it is healthy. One might then ask, is that likely to be the case? There is increasing awareness of the role healthy soils can play in the future of our planet. Regenerative farming can greatly enhance food production without...
Dealing with Winter Storms
In light of the most recent storm, our hearts go out to the 30+ residents who have had trees fall on their homes, and hundreds more whose homes have been damaged by tree limbs and freezing pipes. Many of us have endured days without power and heat. We grieve, as at...