© 2024 KPCW

KPCW
Spencer F. Eccles Broadcast Center
PO Box 1372 | 460 Swede Alley
Park City | UT | 84060
Office: (435) 649-9004 | Studio: (435) 655-8255

Music & Artist Inquiries: music@kpcw.org
News Tips & Press Releases: news@kpcw.org
Volunteer Opportunities
General Inquiries: info@kpcw.org
Listen Like a Local Park City & Heber City Summit & Wasatch counties, Utah
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Livestock At McPolin Helps Improve Biodiversity On The Farm

Park City Municipal

You may have noticed there are cows roaming the pastures and creeks near the McPolin Farm. They're part of an environmental project, according to Summit Land Conservancy director Cheryl Fox.

During her regular visit to KPCW, Fox said her group has joined a project to improve biodiversity and the watershed on the farm.

"We are working with the city and Bill White farms on restoring and enhancing the McPolin farms and its ability to basically sequester carbon, increase biodiversity and the watershed the water quality as it comes across that property. The intensive grazing is a tool that can be used. Already there are about 125 cows out there. They’re very tightly managed and their doing their job, which is pulling down the weeds and clearing out the old irrigation ditches and those types of things.”

However, cattle generally have a reputation for harming streams by degrading water quality and eroding banks.

“They will be closely managed so that they don’t cause that degradation. (…) They’ve done studies they say livestock causes problems, and they do if they’re not managed properly on properties. They’ll stumble down the streambanks and cause a lot of erosion and then there’s more stuff in the water. You have to manage them very carefully but if you don’t manage them and you don’t have any grazing animals on the property, then you get overgrowth of weeds and thatch.”

Fox said the project is aiming to enhance the soil on the farm.

“Soils really are our best way to sequester carbon and to pull carbon out of the atmosphere. We all think of trees as sequestering carbon because they’re big and stick up in front of us, but in fact soils are far more effective at sequestering carbon and they sequester the carbon for a much longer period of time. The tree only sequesters carbon as long as that tree lives. When it falls down or burns down or gets cut down that carbon gets released back into the atmosphere. Whereas soils actually pull it out. More and more studies are showing that if we can increase the carbon sequestration in our soil—so increase there’s little organisms and fungi and everything down in there—the manure and as they step through the thatch that’s there all of that enhances the ecosystem that we don’t see that’s underneath the soil.”

As for the impact of manure from the cows--a major source of methane--Fox said the project is aiming to enhance the soil on the farm.

Related to the McPolin Farm, Fox said an informational walk is set for Wednesday of next week, October 22nd from 5:00 to 7:00 pm. Attendees should meet at the McPolin trailhead on the other side of Hwy. 224.

Coming up on the calendar for the Land Conservancy, a Moonshine Adventure is set for August 24th.

“These are full moon adventures. We do them in conjunction with our friends at Mountain Trails. This is next week August 24th which is Friday. People meet at the Round Valley Quinn’s Junction Trailhead at 8:30 pm. There are three different groups, a bike, a hike and a run. People need to bring good lights, good headlamps. These go out rain or shine, I know they’ve had some really interesting adventures with some interesting weather. It’s a great opportunity to get out and see the landscape under the moonlight.”

Fox said that August 31st is the date for their annual Hops Harvest.

“If people would like to join us we’d love to have volunteers show up at the Sweede Alley side of the Wasatch Brew Pub at 9:00 am. Which is a little bit later than usual, so I think that’s very civilized. We encourage people to bring gloves if they have them, long pants. Sometimes it’s very chilly that early in the morning. Prepare to hike a little bit because we do hike up to the hops populations. Then we’ll come back and sit there in the back bay of the brew pub. We pull the hop cones off of the bines. The cones go right into that vat and they make our Clothing Hoptional beer”

Cheryl Fox for the Summit Land Conservancy. She advised harvester to RSVP since the Brew Pub will be hosting lunch for the group. Contact Julia on their website

Known for getting all the facts right, as well as his distinctive sign-off, Rick covered Summit County meetings and issues for 35 years on KPCW. He now heads the Friday Film Review team.
Related Content