Digging in to Restore El Rito Campground

Hello, I’m Arron Lucero. The reason why I joined River Source is because I wanted to help with restoring a campsite and help with water quality testing. We had ideas to restore the campsite and clean it up. We also had to do the water quality testing and I had experience last year so I knew what to do. We did the water testing with all five campsites throughout the whole campground. We measured the dissolved oxygen, phosphate, nitrate and E-coli at each campsites. When we had to restore the campsite we noticed that there were a lot of illegal roads that were created by campers. We also noticed that when people drove through the area they were kicking up dirt that blew into the river.

To restore the campsite we had to dig up holes to put in wooden posts for a fence to keep out vehicle traffic so that they don’t throw-up dirt into the river. We also put in posts to stop vehicle traffic to protect a specific site and to help with environmental protection. We had planned to restore the campsite and we completed all of our tasks that we wanted to. I had a good time working with River Source and others.

We saw baby ducks so that was pretty cool. I had a good time making new friends that I never hung around with. I’m hoping to work with River Source again throughout the years so I can get a job as a game and fish warden. I enjoy working with other people and it was a good experience working with Rich, Carlos and David. We all had our ups and downs but we all came through and finished the job. I personally liked the work we did because I know how to do this kind of work.

My favorite part of this job was building the fences because it was hard labor and really easy to do after you knew what to do. Through the two weeks we did some hard work, on the first day we had orientation and spent time in the classroom thinking about what we had to accomplish. The rest of the week we spent all our time in the field working and planning. Our second week we were in the field again. Hopefully throughout the years we will have the same crew and get more interns on the team.

I can happily say that I now have more experience so next year if I get hired again I’ll know what to expect. When I found out I got the job I was ready for anything and excited to work. I always do work at home so I knew that I could work hard and help out a lot. And I did. We all worked very hard and we were all very happy with the results at the end. We were very tired but we enjoyed it. Thank you to everyone that helped with this project. It’s very appreciated.